


Most Wanted

by AgentSkyeMorse



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: And she's a flirty little shit, Because Bobbi is better!, Berserker staff makes for Berserker Bobbi, Everybody gets a Bobbi forehead kiss, F/F, Forehead Kisses, Hand is a jerk but she's a jerk for the good guys, I'm A Procrastinator, More tags to come once I get my shit together!, No AoS Finale Spoilers Please, Rewrite, S.H.I.E.L.D season 1, Skye is a still Skye, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Space sniffles are no laughing matter, Trust Issues, With Bobbi instead of Ward, but we can laugh a little anyway cause it's space sniffles and it sounds funny, half drunk sweaty forehead kisses from Bobbi give meaning to life, more to come - Freeform, my shit has still not been gotten together therefore I do not have better tags yet, seriously slow burn, the slowness of this burn cannot be exagerated, this burn is so slow a snail passed it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6186541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentSkyeMorse/pseuds/AgentSkyeMorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Is it the girl, Morse?” May was the second one to ask her that question. She didn’t bother to question how May knew something was bothering her, let alone that it was a five foot four hacker that was full of snark and logic.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Something like that.” Everything like that. It was the girl, her very existence, her handwriting, the particular shade of brown that her eyes were, that she was born on July 2nd 1988. That she’d said the three words she’d been waiting to hear since naptime in Kindergarten.<i></i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, hate me all you want! This is a rewrite after some suggestions to improve this story, it was just going a few edits here and there to make it better and then... I edited it and decided I didn't like it so I rewrote the whole thing.  
> More detail, more depth (hopefully) and hopefully a better story.

The engine was loud, vibrating through her body as she weaved through the traffic, the wind whistling in her ears, nearly drowning out the sounds coming through her comms. Maybe if she drove fast enough the wind would actually drown out her handler so she could ignore him telling her that the Rising Tide had leaked her mission details, had told the entire world - good and bad - where to find the Chitauri neural transmitter she was here to retrieve. This was her third mission in a row that had been leaked by the Rising Tide.

“Vous ne pouvez pas être ici! Comment avez vous fait pour rentrer, Mademoiselle?” A man in an expensive suit approached when she walked through the side door of the little French bistro.

“Agent Morse, avec le Shield.” A flash of her badge and the man let go of his arm.

“Shield?” A look of unease crossed the man's face as she reached into her mission pack for her x-ray tray and prints napkin. “Pourquoi le Shield est-il ici? Est-ce que tout va bien? Y-a-t-il plus de ceux là?-” the man worried, a bead of sweat forming on his brow.

“Je vais avoir besoin accès à l'étage supérieur.” She cut in, because whilst there weren’t currently more Chitauri raining down upon them - it may have only been New York that was attacked, but the entire world felt the repercussions. Aliens had descended on New York to kill and enslave humanity. Just thinking about it was enough to bring back the stench of burning, the terror-filled screams, the feeling of hopelessness as she watched from the ground as Tony Stark flew a nuke through a wormhole in the sky.

“Bien entendu. Bien entendu.” The man agreed quickly, snapping her back to reality. Nice reality where the Chitauri were dead, humanity wasn’t enslaved, and the only alien they had to worry about was Thor and his muscles. “N'importe quoi pour aider le Shield.”

She checked her outfit - a perfect replica of the other waitstaff - and inhaled the aromatic scent of the kitchen - what? It smelled good! - before straightening. “Oublier que je suis ici.” The blonde commanded, readying her tray before exiting the kitchen into the main area of the bistro.

The floor squeaked under her shoes, the sounds of the traffic on the street was barely louder than the hum of conversation as she approached her target, blue eyes darting around the room to cover all exits. Just in case. “Puis-je prendre votre verre?” She leaned forward to speak, letting her breasts fall directly into his line of vision.

“Oui. S'il vous plaît.” He waved a dismissive hand as she reached across him, light fingers grasping the stem of his glass. “Rapportez en un autre lorsque que vous reviendrez.” The order was accompanied by rough fingertips trailing her arm, lingering at her hand. “Vous ne perdrez pas votre temps.” The implications were clear. He wanted her body, and he was willing to pay for it. It made her sick, but instead of breaking the hand still touching her, she smiled and batted her lashes.

“Bien entendu.” She wouldn’t be returning anyway, so the empty promise wouldn’t hurt anyone. His hand fell from hers as she straitened.

Her blonde hair tickled her upper back as it swished in its ponytail as she climbed the stairs, swiping the glass across her napkin to pick up the fingerprints on it before tucking it away for later use.. The low hum of the patrons in the bistro faded away as she ascended to stairs to the residential levels. The scents grew fainter and a sense of foreboding tightened her stomach. The lock was easy to pick and apartment inside had a classic overly expensive feel to it with sleek furnishings, expensive paintings, and Scotch in crystal tumblers.

Sci-Tech really didn’t get enough credit for their inventions, Morse mused as she twisted the drinks tray and held it up to the walls, looking through the circular viewing panel. Wall, wall, painting with questionable frame - not her problem - bingo! The drinks tray discarded on a nearby table and the painting lifted from the wall, she draped the napkin over her own hand and held it to the scanner of the safe. Baited breath gave way to a relieved smirk as the safe clicked open and her goal was sitting there, just waiting to be taken and given to S.H.I.E.L.D - or whatever nefarious plans any other sellers buyers might have for it.

“Huh.” Morse mused as she peered at the small, alien device. All this fuss over something so small.

“Qui es-tu?” The voice shouldn’t have come as a surprise - she’d been trained better than that - and yet when it sounded she couldn’t help the way her spine straightened and her fingers twitched for her batons. “Vous êtes l'une d'entre eux. L'une des-”

“Je fais partie des gentils.” Morse cut in, pocketing the little velvet bag containing the Chitauri neural link.

“Parce que les gentils entrent par effraction et volent.” The woman rolled her eyes, waving a wooden spoon in her direction. The movement made the silk robe encasing her near-nude body ripple, showing off supple skin and lacy lingerie.

“Mais ils vendent de la technologie alien au plus offrant?” One eyebrow arched at the French woman challengingly. “Parce que c'est ce qui se serait passé. Je suis du bon côté. Croyez-moi.”

The woman eyed her, the scent of her perfume was sweet, even from halfway across the room. Or maybe it was just her natural scent? She liked it, whatever it was. “Si vous le voulez, allez-y.” The woman gestured vaguely at the door with a resigned sigh. “Je ne pas besoin de vos explications.”

“Ok alors.” Morse nodded slowly, tucking her napkin back into her pocket and picking up the drinks tray after putting the painting back on the wall over the safe. “Adieu.”

“Fermez la porte, je ne veux pas d'étrangers ici.” The woman called after her and the irony was not lost on her as she obediently shut the door behind herself.

That had been... Remarkably easy.

At least she’d gotten there before anyone else - no thanks to the Rising Tide - and had managed to get out without having to fight anyone. “On my way to rendezvous.” The blonde murmured, tapping her comms unit on as she descended the stairs. “Thinking of getting some of those fancy French pastries, anyone want one?”

Another pass through the kitchens to get her pack and thank the managed - reminding him to keep his mouth shut about her presence, not that it would matter if the woman from upstairs said anything - before heading back outside to her waiting motorcycle. Sleek black and silver hummed to life between her legs, drowning out the sounds on the street.

* * *

 

She was tired. Tired, and hungry, and there was an ache growing behind her eyes as she waited for her superior to show up. A normal room, a long table lined with chairs, glass doors, the large S.H.I.E.L.D eagle on the wall. She sighed, her fingers tinkering around the Chitauri neural link, itching to investigate, discover, learn.

“Agent Morse.” The neural link made a metallic thunking sound as she let it drop to the metal table when Agent Hill entered the room.

“Agent Hill.” The blonde nodded her greeting as the other woman sat at the opposite end of the table. Blue eyes watched carefully as Hill set down a manila folder and started flipping through it. Hill let out a low hum, Morse tapped against the metal table with her nails.

Hum.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Hum.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Hill finally looked up, keeping the file open in front of her. “You were told to abort your mission in Paris after the details were leaked.” A statement, not a question, Morse kept staring at Hill through narrowed eyes. “You defied a direct order from your mission handler, went into possibly hostile territory, and-”

“And isn’t that what I’m trained to do?” Morse pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “Go into hostile situations, incapacitate the opposition if need be, and get out with the objective.” The neural link lifted between her fingers for a moment before sliding with a metallic scrape across the table, stopping two inches in front of the file. “I went in, got the transmitter, and got out in under ten minutes, without having to throw a punch or use a weapon. If I had listened to Wentz and aborted we would have had to reschedule, try and track the transmitter down again, maybe have to fight our way in and out, and wasted dozens of man hours for what took ten minutes.”

“You willfully defied orders for a risk.” Hill planted both hands face down on the table, a clear show of dominance. Morse itched to do the same, assert her dominance. But, this wasn’t a pissing contest, and she had defied orders. Technically she was in the wrong.

“My apologies, Agent Hill.” Forced through gritted teeth, the woman in question nodded once, picking up the transmitter and gesturing for a nearby Agent with a waiting containment box to step forward.

“You’ve been reassigned, Morse.” Hill announced once they were alone again, the words hanging stale in the air for a long minute.

“Because of one mission?” Not the labs. Not the labs. Not the labs. She loved the labs, but she’d transferred to Operations for a reason.

Hill shook her head, the ghost a smile cross her lips. “Because you were requested.” Well, that was a relief. She had seen Agents re-assigned for less than defying orders and proceeding with a rogue mission, but to know that she’d been requested for something else was a relief. “By Agent Coulson.”

“Agent Coulson is dead.” Morse clenched her jaw, she’d seen the aftermath - had nursed one of her friends during a drinking binge after Coulson had died during the battle of New York - she’d seen the affects his death had had on the Avengers.

“Just call me Jesus then.” Her gun was out of its holster, safety clicked off and aimed at the owner of the voice within two seconds. “Agent Morse.” The man stepped out of the shadows with his hands up in surrender. Blue eyes, receding hairline, bland smile - Phil Coulson.

“Stand down, Morse.” Agent Hill commanded, a sharp edge to her voice that had the blonde lowering her weapon and clicking the safety back on.

The man - she couldn’t admit it was Coulson yet because she’d been there to see her friend drinking way too much in the aftermath of New York to mourn his death - smiled at her, stepping further out of the shadows. “Good reflexes.”

“Thanks.” Morse muttered, “you’re dead.” Although clearly not from look of him. For a man two years dead he looked remarkably healthy.

“The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The man smirked a little, Hill rolled her eyes, Morse just kept staring. “Tough crowd.” He winced, “I was dead. Technically. For forty seconds. I was revived and sent to Tahiti to recover, it’s a magical place.”

“For two years?” Long recovery. “And you didn’t tell anyone? You didn’t tell-”

“It was on a need to know basis.” Hill cut in with a stern glare. “The Avengers don’t need to know.” Not that they didn’t, but that they don’t. They still don’t know, and that was Hill saying don’t tell them. “And it was eight seconds, not forty. It gets longer every time you tell it.” The last part directed a the patiently observing man.

“When you’re staring down the pointy end of an Asgardian with a God complex and seeing the bright light at the end of the tunnel, you can tell it your way.” He accepted the file when Hill held it out. “Agent Morse, impressive file.” She’d suspected it was hers, but that was the confirmation. “You were recruited to Sci-Tech and achieved Doctorates in Biology and Chemistry before transferring to Operations. Why did you transfer?”

It had been strongly suggested by the head of Sci-Tech after she gave another student a concussion and broken arm in three places when he refused to take no for an answer. “It was better to focus my energy and temperament.” Is what she answered with though.

“Whatever your reason, you seemed to flourish at Operations; top of your class in combat and espionage.” The man hummed, flipping through the file. Her file. “six languages, seven specialties, on the shortlist for the Avengers Initiative. By all accounts a perfect Agent.” Hill snorted before trying to cover it up with a cough when they both turned to stare at her.

“Are you not seeing the eight disciplinary notes?” Eight? Morse tried not to react to that, sure she knew she’d had a few notes - probably would have had a new one from the last mission in Paris too - but eight seemed excessive.

“Going off book, ignoring orders, this one is just a drawing of a time bomb with legs.” The man shot a puzzled look at Hill who in turn looked exasperated.

“It’s not a bomb.” The brunette muttered, “it’s a person. Rolling their eyes.” As if to demonstrate her own rolled skyward for a moment.

He tilted his head to left, then the right. “Are you sure? It looks like a bomb. Look it’s even got a fuse!”

“Morse, you’re dismissed, report to the airfield with your bag at oh-six-hundred tomorrow morning.” Hill ordered, turning away from the blonde with a shake of her head.

Morse let out a sigh, “yes, Ma’am.”

* * *

 

Blue eyes scanned the airfield. Quinn jets mostly, a couple of jeeps, and one large black plane. It looked like the old MCU’s from the 80’s that was being loaded with crates of supplies. Her duffle bag was weighing on her shoulder as she walked up the ramp to sound of two bickering little UK kids.

“FitzSimmons?” She double checked the file Maria had given her less than ten minutes ago - whilst also telling her to keep her eyes open and her mouth shut in the most friendly way possible. FitzSimmons were legend at Sci-Tech, they’d been there after she’d already left, but word about prodigies like them spread quickly.

“Fitz, Simmons.” The young English woman pointed the man first and then herself with a bright smile.

“I’m engineering, she’s bio-chem.” The Scottish man stared at her with wide eyes. “And you must be Agent Morse.” Her bag thunked as it hit the floor of plane. “The, uh, the-the pictures didn’t-didn’t show how-how beautiful you are.” She raised an eyebrow, Fitz flushed and ducked his head whilst Simmons just sighed.

Fitz and Simmons, geniuses, prodigies - adorable accents. They looked like a pair of puppies. Puppies that were currently bickering about dendrotoxin and something called a Night Night gun. “Have you tried removing some of the paralysis from the dendrotoxin and infusing it with a more stable substance so it doesn’t break up when the gun is fired?” She suggested, making both the puppies go silent.

“Yes, that does sound-”

“That seems very-”

“It’s a very good idea-”

“Thank-you very much!” They spoke over each other before ending at the same time, Simmons smiling brightly and Fitz ducking his head to tinker with something.

The smell of the tarmac - asphalt, jet fuel and burnt rubber - faded the further she got into the plane, giving way to clean air and stylish furnishings. This had definitely been update after it was taken out of commission in the 80’s. It had a bar!

“Agent Morse.” Coulson - she was still tentative to admit it was the man her friend had mourned - called once he spotted her. Maria said it was him. She wouldn’t say anything else about the subject, but she’d assured her it was actually Coulson. “You’re early.”

“My orders said six.” She replied with a shrug, because it had been instilled in her at the Academy that whatever time she’d been told, being on time meant she was half an hour late. They walked through the plane in silence; a lounge area, bar, kitchen, she’d already passed a gym and lab downstairs near the cargo ramp. “Nice plane.”

“Thanks, I only had to die to get it.” He smiled at her as if it was some kind of inside joke. “Hey, did you hear the one about the guy who’s afraid of flying?” Dad jokes? Sure, she’d heard stories about Coulson acting like a total Dad, but she never really expected him to use Dad jokes. “He probably shouldn’t have told his passengers before take-off.” It wasn’t even a good Dad joke.

“You should work on that.” She didn’t even have it in her to pretend to laugh. “If you need any material, my marriage was kind of a joke.” Coulson stared at her, unblinking and blank, for a long minute. “When’s take-off?” Just to get the attention off her.

Another long moment of Coulson staring at her. “You can unpack and get settled, mission briefing in half an hour, take-off in an hour.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Finding the bunks was easy; six standard 9 foot by 12 foot rooms decked out with a TV, desk, under the bed storage, and the scent of fresh linen under the bright lighting. Her duffle gave a half bounce when she dropped it onto the bed, ruffling the perfect military tautness. She could unpack her clothes later, but some things she took with her everywhere. Her personal effects like her Franny’s Saloon keyring, the picture of her parents, and all of her friends together at her wedding - the marriage may be over, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t cherish the photo with all of her friends.

After kicking her mostly full duffle bag under the desk and looking around the bare bunk, she let out a breath. Maybe this was what she needed? A new start after her failure of a marriage with Lance. That one spot on her left hip tingled at the thought, it made her pause for a moment.

Her Soul Mark had appeared in kindergarten when she was 5, waking her up from naptime to the curious sensation of her Soulmate's first words to her scrawling across her skin. It had been warm and tingling and her 5-year-old mind had barely registered anything beyond the thought of ‘pleasant’ before going back to sleep, unaware at the time that her entire life had just changed.

Her fingers slipped under the waistband of her pants and panties, touching the warm skin on her left hip where her words were. A woodsy, earthy brown that reminded her of freshly turned soil or the middle of a sunflower. Even without looking she could see the brown letters in a messy scrawl spelling out her Soulmate. The first words her Soulmate would ever say to her.

* * *

 

There was an unknown powered person on the loose and Coulson was more interested in chasing down the Rising Tide who revealed him. Shouldn’t they be going after the powered man? The man who had jumped out of a burning building and done more damage to the street than had been done to him. Instead of the Rising Tide who uploaded a video of him, because if it hadn’t been the Rising Tide, it would have been someone else. The Rising Tide were a minor hindrance, but at this point they weren’t a major obstacle.

But, she held in her complaints, she caught herself from arguing, she followed along like a good little Agent - no need to get another behaviour note on the first day - and bit her tongue. They were tracking an open broadcast from the Rising Tide with the same signature as the person who posted the video of the powered man, and she tried not to hang onto every word as the woman spoke. Her mark tingled with every syllable and she had to catch herself from touching the words more than once.

“A bag?” Morse raised an eyebrow when Coulson handed the plain black bag to her after stopping the SUV.

“It’s a bit old school.” Coulson admitted with a passive shrug, “but it is effective.” He was already heading towards the alley behind the coffee shop that signal was coming from. Morse kept her eyes open and her gun cocked as she followed. The coffee shop was fairly busy, the streets of L.A smelled like week-old car exhaust, and the camera outside the bookstore next to the coffee shop moved as she and Coulson crossed the street.

Someone was watching them!

Her grip on her gun tightened, her jaw set, a dusty blue van with a white top that had to be at least 20 years old. Their Rising Tide hacker worked out of a van? Coulson slid the door open - not even locked - and there was a moment of complete silence.

“Hey.” The girl - she barely looked out of her teens - waved with one hand. “What up?” Her world stopped spinning, her heart thudding in her chest. Her words. Her Soulmark.

The spot she knew her mark to be was burning and she was nearly dizzy as she stared at the girl; dark hair, pink lips, olive skin, brown eyes... Woodsy, earthy coloured brown eyes.

“Took you guys long enough, I was running out of things to say.” The girl was speaking again, but all Morse could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears. “Are we going?” Apparently they weren’t arresting her quick enough. She was certain Coulson would want answers about her freezing up later, but as she snapped back to reality she didn’t care. This girl, this hacker, was her Soulmate. She abandoned the idea of the bag over her head and instead pulled the girl out of her van, peaking inside as she did so; computers, a tiny bed tucked in one corner, a desk cluttered with papers and transmitting equipment. One of the screens showed the street they’d just crossed, most likely from camera outside the bookstore.

She had been watching them.

Waiting for them.

* * *

 

Morse gripped the edge of the table and breathed deeply, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to block out the outside world.

“Is it the girl?” Coulson demands, following her out of the interrogation room.

“Is what the girl?” Morse straightened her back, cleared her mind, focussed her breathing.

“You deliberately throwing an interrogation.”

“I didn’t throw the interrogation.” She denied indignantly. She had never thrown an interrogation, she’d been top of her class in interrogation at the Academy and had only gotten better at it over the year, the girl just...

She didn’t react.

Skye - if that was her name - hadn’t reacted at all when she’d spoken; not a twitch, not a flicker of recognition, no surprise. Nothing. How could she have no reaction? It wasn’t possible. She was sure it was her, positive that Skye was her Soulmate, there was no mistaking the burn in her mark, but how could Skye just ignore that so easily?

Skye.

Her Soulmate.

“We know nothing about her. Do you realise how rare that is?” Coulson had kept talking, and she’d been subconsciously following him to where he took a secure case out of a safe. An injector gun lay inside.  
He said they knew nothing about her, but that wasn’t true. She knew Skye was born on July 2nd, 1988, right in the middle of nap time. She knew her eyes could look as bright as molten gold in some light and as dark as the darkest chocolate in other light. She knew far more about Skye than she would like to right now.  
“This is QNB-T-sixteen.” He took the vial out of the injector gun and she eyed. She’d never used it, but she’d heard of it. A highly potent truth serum. Coulson held up a second vial from a nearby bench. “This is saline and dye. Are you ready to get us an ally, Agent Morse?”

The interrogation room smelt like metal and daisies when they went back in. The metal she had expected, the daisies made her pause. Skye was sitting there, looking at them with a cross between boredom and expectancy. Seemingly unaffected by her presence, Skye just stared, waiting. Her fingers itched to reach for her, to touch her, to find out if her skin was as soft as it looked. Her mark burned at the thought, urging her to find out, but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t because Skye was a Rising Tide hacker, because she had information they needed, because she hadn’t even reacted when she had spoken. Morse had had training at the Academy not to react if she found her Soulmate on a mission, but she still couldn’t help but react. Skye hadn’t done anything. Not even blink.

Coulson was gone and the air felt a lot thicker. Skye was leaning forward, her breasts nearly falling as she leaned across the table. “Agent Morse.” Her name sounded sinful from her lips. “What’s your real name?” She resisted the urge to roll her blue eyes, she was meant to be under the influence of a powerful truth drug.

“Bobbi. Short for Barbara.” The answer was automatic. Keep as close to the truth as possible.

“Bobbi Morse.” Skye walked around the table, light fingers walking across the metal and stilling beside Bobbi’s hand. “I’ll tell you a little secret, Bobbi Morse.” It sounded like satin and sin. She could feel the warmth of her body behind her, the ghost of a breath on her ear that sent shivers down her spine. “I know there’s no truth serum.” Skye’s lips brushed her ear and she had to hold in a groan. “But, if you want my help you’ll tell me what I want to know.” Her teeth nipped at her earlobe as she pulled away, fingers trailing up Bobbi’s arm and across her shoulders. “The staring; is that real or did you think it would get me on your side?”

“Little of both.” Bobbi admitted, blue eyes following Skye as she went back to the other side of the table. She was finally able to breathe, the buzzing under her skin dimming enough for her to focus. How did Skye know she was under the truth serum? Or was that just a guess and she’d fallen for it? Less than an hour and this girl was already messing with her head. And Skye wasn’t affected at all.

“How does your husband feel about that?” Her left hand still had a tan line where her ring had been.

“Ex husband.” Bobbi corrected.

“Because of the girls?” Skye smirked, leaning forward to be let in on the secret.

“He liked the girls. Thought it was hot.” Had tried to convince her to have a threesome on more than one occasion, but she’d refused to sleep with anyone else while she was married - she had morals, and she knew Lance had been faithful despite her wants for a threesome. Fidelity had never been a problem with them, nor was the sex or even the fact that they had loved each other - despite not being Soulmates - it was the secrets and lies that tore them apart.

“How bad do you want my help?” Skye sat back, arms crossing over her chest, Bobbi narrowed her eyes at the younger woman.

The blonde let out a sigh and shook her head. “I don’t. I wanted you arrested and locked away where you couldn’t use a computer.” She kept her blue eyes alert and focused, watching for any micro-expression Skye might give off. Any indication that she’d argue against imprisonment because they were Soulmates, because they had a bond, because this was more than just an interrogation between an Agent and a Rising Tide hacker.

“How bad does Coulson want it then?” And just like that moment passed without so much as a mention of them being Soulmates. It frustrated Bobbi more than Coulson wanting to recruit the girl. How could she be so indifferent? Her mark was burning against her skin, nearly to the point of pain, and she didn’t look the least bit fazed. Was she not feeling it? Or did she just not care? “So tell me, Bobbi Morse; have you ever killed anyone?”

“Yes.” Her answer was stiff, through gritted teeth as she fought against the burning sensation on her hip.

“Did you like it?”

“No.” Killing was never something she liked. Taking a life - no matter how evil - was never something she liked doing.

“How many people have you killed?”

“Seventeen men, two women.” And she knew the names of each of them. “All of them criminals who had killed before and would kill again.”

“What level Agent are you?”

Bobbi narrowed her eyes again, that was a different turn in the questions. “Seven.” Nearly unheard of to rise so quickly considering she’d started as a specialist two and a half years later than she should have. Izzy had just been promoted to Level 6, Maria was a 9 - even more unheard of, but she’d earned being Deputy Director - Idaho and Trip were both 5’s.

Skye stared at her for a long moment before looking away as her shoulders deflated a little. That answer had disappointed her. Why?

And why did it make her want to comfort the girl?

Skye wanted something from them, and they needed to be a certain Level to give it to her. 7 wasn’t high enough, it’d only be a matter of time before she tried to question Coulson or tried to hack her way into whatever she wanted without help. What was she so desperate for that she was willing to get caught to try and get a better chance at getting it?

“Skye-”

“I’ll help.” Skye cut her off before she could even finish her thought, let alone vocalise it. The brunette stood from her chair, scraping it across the metal floor.

* * *

 

Bobbi watched the Agents with an uneasy feeling in her gut. Fitz was running around, trying to get the holographic simulator set up for when Skye would send the audio of the explosion to him. May was with Skye, driving her back to the alley so she could unlock the codes. Coulson was watching next to her. Simmons was helping Fitz set up and cringing at his attempts to flirt with Skye. It was normal, safe, nothing to give reason to the uneasy feeling in her gut.

“This is a risk, Sir.” She was still trying to convince Coulson not to trust Skye. Because she’s a hacker, she’s with the Rising Tide who had leaked three of her missions, she wants something from them and she needs a high security clearance to get it. She was Bobbi’s Soulmate and she wasn’t acknowledging it in the slightest. “She’s with the Rising Tide, she’s a hacker, what happens when-” the piercing ring of Coulson’s phone interrupted her.

She watched Coulson’ jaw set as the person on the other end of the phone spoke, his eyes darkening and his grip on the phone tightening. “Mike got Skye.”

For the second time in as many hours Bobbi’s world tilted after hearing three words. Three words from Skye that had been driving her insane for the last two hours. Her Soulmark, her Soulmate - and she was ignoring the very bond that was making her crazy.  
Three words from Coulson that made her see red. Mike Peterson - down on his luck father - had taken Skye. The unstable, powered man had taken her Soulmate and it made her want blood. Mike Peterson’s blood.

Bobbi was working on automatic as she followed Coulson’s orders - in the back of her mind she registered that Fitz said something about someone hacking the system. Skye. Skye. Skye. It had only been two hours, but she could already feel the despair rising; what would she do without Skye? She’d been waiting since naptime when she was 5 to meet her, she wasn’t ready to lose her. Not now, not ever.

They got to the train station in time for hundreds of people to flood out around them in a panic. Bobbi held her escrima sticks in tight fists, stalking into the building with a singular purpose - get Skye. She could hear Coulson yelling behind her, telling her to stop and follow orders, but her body was moving without any conscious thought and the red in her mind wouldn’t listen to reason.

Mike Peterson was easy to spot - he was the one in the middle of the station that everyone was running away from. She could see Skye running away from the scene and her instincts told her to chase her Soulmate and protect her, but then she caught sight of little Ace Peterson.

Skye would have to wait.

She approached the boy that was staring at his father in fear. No child should look at their parent in fear. Flashes of her Academy days flashed through her mind, the course on how to deal with children in the field; get down to their level, establish trust, soothing tones, maintain eye contact, way for them to come to you... If all else fails and it’s a dire situation, grab the kid and run. “Ace.” She dropped to her knees and held her hands up to show she didn’t have a weapon. “My name is Bobbi.” Establish trust, “I’m work with Shield. You know Shield, right?”

“What happening to my Dad?” The boy was nearly shaking, his voice laden with fear - for or because of his father she wasn’t sure.

“Your Dad is a little sick right now.” She inched closer when Ace didn’t seem to be moving in her direction. “But, we’re here to help, and we’re going to do everything we can to make him better, okay?” Hesitant brown eyes flickered her way. “But, I need you to come with me, Ace. We need to get you out of here so we can talk to your Dad.”

“You’ll help him?” Ace took half a step towards her, eyes still flickering between her and his father. “You won’t hurt him, right? You’ll help him get better.” Before she’d run off with nothing but Skye in her mind Coulson had ordered to her to be the one to take the shot. Only if she needed to.

She was looking into the eyes of a boy she’d have to turn into an orphan if Coulson couldn’t talk Mike down. “I’ll do everything I can.” That was the truth, she wouldn’t pull the trigger until the absolute last second, if there was no other choice. Ace stared at her for a long moment before accept her outstretched hand. Bobbi didn’t waste any time, jumping up and picking Ace up, running him out of the building as fast as she could. “Wait here, okay, Ace?” She beckoned a uniformed officer over, flashing her badge at the man. “You stay here with Officer... Diaria, and I’ll go help your Dad.” Bobbi turned to the officer with a glare. “You don’t let this boy out of your sight. Got it?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, already running back into the train station. Ace was okay. The train station was eerily empty. Coulson and Mike were in the centre, Mike was getting increasingly angry, demanding to see his son. May was nowhere to be seen, neither was Skye. It made her stomach clench with fear, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. She could worry about where Skye was and if she was safe, or she could deal with Mike Peterson and make sure that if Skye was still in the building she wouldn’t die in a fiery explosion.  
Bobbi reached her birdseye view on the mezzanine level, blue eyes darting around for any sight of Skye. A flash of brown hair, a taunt of a sarcastic remark, anything. Her mark itched uncomfortable when all she heard was Coulson and Mike arguing, Mike getting more angry... A gunshot. Her stomach twisted, her mark burned, urging her to find Skye, protect Skye. But, the best way for her to protect Skye right now was to stay where she was.

Her escrima sticks were tucked back into the holsters on her back and replaced with her rifle. She wasn’t a sniper, that wasn’t her specialty, but she was good enough to get the job done if she needed to. Little Ace Peterson pleading for her to save his father flashed through her mind. She really hoped she didn’t need to. Her eye peered through the scope; Coulson, trying to exude calmness. Mike, getting more angry, more demanding, more violent. If Coulson couldn’t talk him down in the next minute Mike could explode. Literally. His skin was starting to glow orange, and that was never a good sign when Extremis was involved.

Scuffling shoes squeaking across the floor caught her attention; Fitz running through the train station, eyes darting around until they landed on her. “Come on, Fitz.” Bobbi urged under her breath, she couldn’t go meet him, couldn’t go find out why he was here. Because she needed to stay where she was. Just in case. Just in case it was too late and she needed to pull the trigger.

Another sound, the scrape of a door made her turn in the other direction. Her mark let out a spurt of warmth of approval. Skye. Skye and May, alive and relatively well, and right now not at all safe. Her eyes sought out Skye’s, hoping to find something in the depths of brown - what she didn’t know - but before she could even ask for silent forgiveness for what she was about to do, Fitz was at her side, panting and heaving and shoving something at her.

“Jus’-jus’ trust me.” His accented words pleaded, the new rifle weighing in her hands. Fitz, Mike, Coulson, Ace, Skye.

Bobbi snatched the gun and took the shot before she could second guess herself - or Fitz - the sound echoing around the otherwise silent room. Silence. A long, heavy beat of silence.

Skye slowly stepped closer, looking horrified, Fitz waited pensively as Coulson took a couple of steps closer to Mike. Bobbi let out a sigh of relief as he nodded at them. It worked. “Fitz, you’re a fucking life saver!” The Scotsman was currently giving Coulson the thumbs and flushed under the praise.

“He’s alive?” Skye peaked over the railing, down to where Coulson was calling in a containment squad and Mike was still laying in the middle of the floor.

Bobbi stared at the girl. Her Soulmate supposedly. The girl who still hadn’t even mentioned their shared bond. “He’s alive.” She confirmed, watching the younger woman sag in relief.

* * *

 

The tarmac stretched out in front of them, waiting for take off, the sky above them was clear and blue with hardly a cloud in sight. It should have been peaceful, waiting for Coulson to return from dropping Ace off at his Aunt's house in the country, May running pre-flight checks with practiced ease next to her, the gentle warmth of her mark on her hip was soothing.

It should have been peaceful.

“Is it the girl, Morse?” May was the second one to ask her that question. She didn’t bother to question how May knew something was bothering her, let alone that it was a five foot four hacker that was full of snark and logic.

“Something like that.” Everything like that. It was the girl, her very existence, her handwriting, the particular shade of brown that her eyes were, that she was born on July 2nd 1988. That she’d said the three words she’d been waiting to hear since naptime in Kindergarten. That she didn’t seem to even acknowledge the first words she’d said to her with even an ounce of surprise.

May barely glanced at her before continuing her checks. “Coulson’s going to make her an offer.” Of course he was, he hadn’t arrested her, hadn’t handed her over to S.H.I.E.L.D when they’d taken Mike Peterson away to the Sandbox. Instead he’d been all bland smiles and unassuming patience as he invited her to her be a ‘friendly face’ whilst taking Ace to his Aunt.

“I know.” A slow breath out through her nose. She hoped Skye wouldn’t accept. That was the last thing she needed, to be distracted in the field by a Soulmate who didn’t even want her. She knew Skye would accept, could feel it in the thrum of her mark. “I don’t trust her. She’s hiding something.” May started to receive a transmission before answering.

“So find out what it is and get her off my damn Bus.” May cast a look through her aviators, regarding her silently. “Don’t make it personal, Morse.”

“Yeah.” Bobbi frowned to herself, getting out of the copilot's chair. “Right.” It was too late for that. Three words and a snarky hacker too late for it not to be personal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M ALIVE!!!
> 
> I promise! I promise it won't be so long for the next chapter! (I'd swear on my life, but my mother already did that and broke it so technically I think I'm meant to be dead now)

 

Blue eyes watched and pink lips pursed as Bobbi watched Skye tossing her belonging into a cardboard box from where she was perched on the upper floor of the Bus. True to May's predictions Coulson had offered Skye a spot on the Bus, and the girl had accepted. Great. Fantastic. Splendiferous. Bobbi wanted her gone.

The girl was a hacker who had actively worked against S.H.I.E.L.D, who knows what she'd do now that Coulson had invited her in - she'd let herself get caught for a reason. She had yet to even mention the fact that they were Soulmates and still remained stubbornly unresponsive to Bobbi. She was a risk, a security breach, and another untrained little puppy like FitzSimmons to have to look after. And Bobbi would forget to think when she was around.

It was getting annoying; the way she'd lose her train of thought and Skye would just continue to act like she had no idea what her presence was doing to her.

She watched as the woman in question finished her packing, folding maps on the wall into squares and following them into the box with photos and her all-important laptop. A little dancing hula girl was the last thing in the box before Skye tossed first one bag, then a second out onto the tarmac before stepping out with her box. She watched Skye give her van one last longing look before turning to a nearby Agent.

"Hey, no joyrides, okay? That's my house." Bobbi could hear her all the way from the top of the stairs and it didn't make her heart ache for the girl. Nope. Definitely not.

Skye picked up her bags and turned to the plane, standing at the bottom of the cargo ramp as her brown eyes swept the area - Bobbi was gone from her perch before they reached her, ignoring the buzzing under skin telling her to go to Skye. She wouldn't go to Skye, she wouldn't give into her Marks incessant prickling until Skye at least admitted that they had a bond.

Bobbi waited, just out of sight of the hacker on the upper floor, and listened; footsteps, the light tap-tap of shoes against the cargo ramp, a grunt as Skye tried to juggle two bags and a box, the hum of FitzSimmons incessant chatter stopping. From her vantage she could see the dust-blue van start to drive itself away, and she couldn't figure out if she wanted the hacker to be in it - because she was untrustworthy, a hacker who had actively worked against them, her Soulmate... That was the part that was tripping her up and confusing her so much, because if it wasn't for the Soulmarks and Soulmates and unacknowledged bonds then her mind would be clear.

"Morse!" Coulson called for her, drawing her attention from the constant buzz under skin and the girl that caused it.

Bobbi followed, finding the man in the comms room with May who looked pissed... Basically the average Tuesday. "Sir?"

"I've invited Skye onboard as a consultant." As if that hadn't already been obvious. May had called it, she had called it, Hell Fitz and Simmons had probably called it. The man wasn't subtle about his collection of misfits.

She couldn't help but argue though. To get Skye off the plane - to confirm Skye would be staying. "It's a risk." She pursed her lips, "she's part of the Rising Tide-" who had leaked three of her missions in a row, for all they knew it could have actually been Skye who did that. "She's untrained-" or too trained; how else could she resist the incessant urging of the mark without so much as batting an eye? "She's-"

"-an asset." Coulson cut it with a smirk. "You know, technically Stark is just a consultant."

"Stark is also a Legacy whose father helped create Shield, not a Rising Tide hacker who could end this circus before we even get off the ground." As long as she was there she wouldn't be able to _not_ focus on her; on what she was doing, on her potentially fucking them over, on the possibility of her in danger. "And he's Iron Man!" Not a tiny woman with big brown eyes that looked like she'd shatter if anyone dared hit her... Or maybe Bobbi was the one that would shatter.

"We already have two untrained kids here, you're adding a third." May finally spoke up, her disapproval oozing through her words. Yes, exactly! How was she expected to concentrate when she had Skye and FitzSimmons to protect because they couldn't protect themselves.

Coulson stared at them both for a long moment; "okay, how about I make this a little clearer? Your concerns have been noted-" blue eye flickered from May to Bobbi as they steeled over with the authority of Director Fury's right hand man. "Both of you. But, Skye is consulting here under my authority, so while your concerns have been noted, and I will take heed; Skye will remain on this plane and a part of this team."

He waited for either of them to challenge him; May shook her head and walked away, Bobbi frowned and nodded. "Yes, Sir." Keep her eyes open and do what she's told, that's what Maria had told her, for once in her life do what she was told. So she didn't argue, didn't fight, didn't point out any of the thousand reasons she had for not trusting Skye and not wanting her on the plane. She bit her tongue and did as she was told.

It wasn't easy.

Especially when she could hear three pairs of feet clunking through the hallway. Fitz's lilting accent reached her first, she held her breath. Simmons' English tones followed in the same sentence as Fitz - always finishing each other's sentences. Skye's tone was the one that made her jaw clench and her skin itch.

"Dismissed, Morse." Coulson's voice brought her back to the briefing room instead of the hall outside. "Mission briefing when we're in the air." The man turned his attention to the tablet in his hands, as much of a dismissal as the actual words had been.

"... everything has to be _just so_ when you're in the field, because of the danger." Bobbi caught the tail end of what Fitz was saying when she opened the door.

The only danger Fitz had probably ever seen was something going wrong in the lab - not that the lab wasn't dangerous, Doctor Banner was proof that it could be dangerous. Skye had probably been in field more than him! And wasn't that a stomach-twisting thought? She turned her attention back to the trio in time to hear Fitz saying that there was only one bunk left for Skye, an it was right next to his. That was a lie, and his attempts at flirting were majorly lacking, but it still made her glare at the Scottish genius.

"Simmons, Fitz, we're taking off soon, go secure the lab." Bobbi stepped out of the shadows and taking the box of Skye's belongings from Fitz in one swift motion. "I'll show our _guest_ to a bunk."

"Of course-"

"-right away!" Fitz and Simmons spoke over each other before running off like a pair of over-excited children.

"Just can't stay away from me, huh?" Skye's voice was teasing, but Bobbi still tensed. Because, yes, that was exactly her problem. She was torn between wanting Skye close and wanting her as far away as possible - she wasn't sure which was fueled by her Mark and which was her distrust.

She chose disdain instead of admitting her weakness. "Whatever helps you sleep at night." The main bunks had six, hers, Fitz's, Simmons', and three empty. Coulson's was behind his office, and May's was near the cockpit. "Fitz is there-" a gesture to a closed bunk door as they passed. "Simmons-" directly next to Fitz because the two little science babies didn't earn a shared moniker by not being close. "Try not to destroy it." She scanned open a bunk at the end of the hall and stepped inside, depositing the box of Skye's most precious things on the bed. The box was disparagingly empty.

Skye's dark eyes moved around the small room; bed, desk, closet space, a little window. It was probably bigger than her van had been, it was a stark contrast of white surfaces, tight corners, and soon-to-be clouds beneath her instead of bitumen and street litter. "Hope your bed is bigger, Agent Amazon." Is the first thing Skye said, eyeing first the bed tucked in the corner, and then scanning her eyes so very obviously over Bobbi's body.

"My bed is fine." Instead of letting herself think about Skye and beds. Or worse - better - yet Skye and _her_ bed. "I saw that mess in your van, try to keep this clean at least, I don't want to have to smell it from next door."

"Next door, huh?" The smirk on Skye's lips shouldn't have been so dirty.

The intercom outside the room crackled to life. "Wheels up in ten." May's voice was dull and authoritative as she spoke.

The first hints of apprehension appeared in Skye's eyes, clouding the pools of brown in a way that made her stomach twist. "Last chance to back out." Please back out. Please stay. Please, please, please. She didn't even know what she was silently pleading for.

Skye sucked her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment, letting her nerves show. "Hey, I, uh, I know we got off on the wrong-" so she was staying? And she was trying to play sweet and innocent. Bobbi wasn't buying it, and she didn't know whether to be disappointed or not.

If she was playing sweet and innocent, the blonde was going to let her know that she wasn't fooled, Bond or not... Even if the girl didn't admit they had a bond. "This isn't a game, you know?" She crossed her arms because that meant not reaching for the woman. "You can't just turn up and throw everything to shit because you want to. This-Shield, it's peoples lives. We worked hard to get here, and I'm not gonna let you screw everything up because you can't see the consequences of what your hacking does beyond the scope of your own computer screen." Skye's arms crossed too and blue eyes dropped to the swell of her breasts that were pushed up with the motion. She continued with her frustrated rant instead of letting herself get distracted by boobs and the warming of her Mark. "Do you have any idea what happens when people like you release classified information? The missions you jeopardise, the lives you put in danger because you leak-"

"Well, maybe if Shield wasn't playing around with alien technology and keeping information that the world has a right to know, I wouldn't have to hack in." Skye's tone was just as sharp and accusatory. "Shield was messing around with alien technology and inviting aliens to New York to kill thousands of people. That's who you work for, an agency that thinks regular people don't matter, who put everyone on the planet in danger, and the only thing they're protecting is their own asses. Do you even know how many people died because Shield brought an alien invasion that tried to wipe us out?"

Before Bobbi could snap back - or kiss the girl - the plane jerked into motion and the tarmac outside the tiny window started to slip by. Skye faltered in her fiery rant to grip the side of the door jam tightly, her knuckles turning white as May started taxiing them down the tarmac. "Come here." Her grip on the younger woman's wrist did not make her heart race or her Mark tingle. Nope. Absolutely not. Bobbi led her through to the main area on the bus and sat down, reaching for the buckles and brushing Skye's hands out of the way she tried to help. The buckles were done quickly and swiftly, securing first Skye - and she managed to only make her hands linger for a second - then herself. "One thousand, two hundred, and eighty-three."

It had been a full seven minutes before she spoke, during the ascent. "What?" Skye cocked her head to the side and peered at her curiously.

A slow breath out to calm herself. "The casualties; one thousand, two hundred and eighty-three... Another twenty-seven died from injuries after the fact, and nearly two thousand were injured." The girl looked shocked, part horrified, Bobbi had to look away. "It would have been a lot worse if SHIELD and the Avengers hadn't been there. That's what SHIELD is, protecting the regular people, they're the ones that _do_ matter, that's why we do it. Think about that next time you go to leak someone's missions details." Blue eyes looked back over to see brown eyes staring at her, wide and searching.

Skye was the one to look away this time. "Did you ever stop to think that if Shield hadn't been messing around with alien technology, they wouldn't have brought the invasion, and thirteen hundred and ten people would still be alive." The blonde let out a long-suffering sigh. Just when she thought she might be getting through to her. "That's who you work for. You may think I'm the anarchist, but I'm not the reason thirteen hundred people are dead. Shield is."

* * *

 

This wasn't her first time in Peru, she'd been here for missions before, but the ancient temple laid out before her was still breathtaking. What was less breathtaking was FitzSimmons bickering about monkeys and snakes, and listening to Coulson explain to Skye what an 0-8-4 was. As soon as they stepped out of the SUV her senses were assaulted with dust. Dusty grounds, dust in the air, dust seeping into her pores. The dust is nearly suffocating as she stomps through the overgrowth. towards the temple, blue eyes scanning the area as she moves.

Fitz and Simmons led the way, chattering endlessly. Skye followed after them, her scent flittering back to her with the light breeze that was in the air. Bobbi trailed Skye, and Coulson brought up the end while May drove off to find somewhere to park that the rebels wouldn't see them. "Fitz, Simmons, get to work." Coulson ordered, but the little UK duo were already heading for the 0-8-4 in the wall and unpacking their little D.W.A.R.F drones. "Morse, secure the perimeter." She cast a long glance as Skye before turning on her heel as Coulson addressed the younger woman. "Skye..." They all waited with baited breath, because Skye didn't belong, she didn't have a role here, her presence right now was redundant. "Don't touch anything."

"Right, yeah." She could hear the dejection in Skye's voice as she left, stepping back into the striking heat of the sun. "I'm good at things too!" Was yelled after them as Coulson followed her out of the temple.

Of course she was good at things; hacking, lying, hiding her reactions, pretending she doesn't have a mark that matches Bobbi's own. But, none of those things were pertinent to the investigation of this 0-8-4. "I'll make a round." The blonde made a circle with her finger to let Coulson know before heading off. She could already hear FitzSimmons and Skye bickering in the temple.

She probably took more time than necessary to check the perimeter, but it was more time away from Skye when her whole body wasn't buzzing with need. The need to touch her, to kiss her, to protect her. To find out what she was hiding and expose her. By the time she made it back to mouth of the temple Coulson had gone back inside and May had arrived from parking the SUV, and she wasn't alone. There were people in the bushes who hadn't been there when she left. Fuck! What if they already got to Skye? She shouldn't have taken so long, Skye, FitzSimmons and Coulson could be in danger and she'd taken a leisurely stroll so she wouldn't be close to Skye.

Conversation with May was easy, using old code phrases to identify the men in the bushes. "Must be something big to get the Cavalry back in the field." 'Something big' they were outnumbered. "Where's your weapon?" Gunfight or hand-to-hand?

"Don't call me that." May was tightlipped, shooting a glare at her. "When I need a gun, I'll bring one." Hand-to-hand.

Okay. That was good. A way to get her aggression and frustrations out.

The four men in the bushes were easy, childs play, Bobbi had learned to fight worse odds in the Academy. The barbed tips of her escrima sticks pressed into one of her hostages neck, ready to let out a pulse of electricity whenever she please. She really should have done it, she mused when the cracking of twigs and the stomps of feet alerted them to dozens more men arriving. With guns.

"Should've brought a gun." Her words aimed at May with a wry smirk, 'should have chosen a gunfight'.

"Radio Coulson." May shot back with a steady look, raising her hands slowly in the face of automatic weapons. The comms unit in her ear crackled a little with the bad reception of the area as Coulson replied to her summons. Even with Coulson with them they wouldn't be able to fight their way out, but they might be able to give Skye and the science babies a chance to escape.

* * *

 

Bobbi should have closed the door, it was the logical thing to do; keep the unknown variables from seeing her weakened. But, she needed to keep an ear out to see if they attacked her Soulmate-her team. FitzSimmons were in the lab working on the device fueled by Tesseract technology - which seemed to go perfectly with Skye's argument against S.H.I.E.L.D, what with the gunfight and people chasing them to try and get their hands on it. May was flying, Coulson was up in his office with Camilla Reyes, and the Militia were sitting in the living room with free access to Skye.

Think of the girl and she shall appear, Skye peaked around the edge of the doorframe, not nearly as stealthy as she thought she'd been. "Hey." Brown eyes peered at her for a moment before the girl stepped so she was fully in view.

"Hey." Bobbi rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to her side, and attempting to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. It's just the wound, it's got nothing to do with the girl. Maybe if she told herself that enough she might actually believe it.

Brown eyes widened as the hacker stepped in and partially shut the door. "Holy shit, you're hurt!" As if she didn't already know that.

"I'm fine." The blonde ground out, continuing to dab at the wound with antiseptic.

"Here, let me-" the cotton swabs and alcohol were out of her hands before she could argue, Skye kneeling on the harsh tiles in front of her. Bobbi had to resist the urge to groan when the stinging touch of the swab was accompanied by the cool breeze of Skye's breath. "I'm not some anarchist hacker type that wants to see the world burn from behind a computer screen." And she had to ruin the moment by speaking. "When I said the rebels were kick ass, I meant the concept; so many people uniting against the government's mining policies, taking a stand for what they believe in. It's pretty cool." Between swipes of antiseptic and gentle blows against the gunshot graze on her side.

"Yeah, really cool." Bobbi rolled her eyes before letting them fall shut, "you're really good at this." The words tumbled from her lips without her permission.

"Thanks." She could hear the smirk in Skye's voice without opening her eyes; "had a lot of practice." What sort of practice did she have with taking care of gunshot wounds? Or injuries in general? "I just think that the fight is better when you're not alone; a hundred people taking down a wall is lot more effective than one person kicking at it in the hopes that something will happen."

"And one person going around the wall is better than kicking it down." The swabs touched her skin for the last time followed by the coolness of Skye's breath. Bobbi opened her eyes again to look at the girl. This would be the perfect moment to talk to her, find out what she's hiding, why she's hasn't mentioned their bond at all.

"What if kicking the wall down is the only way? What if there is no way to walk around or climb over?" Brown eyes peered up at her as Skye took a slow breath. "Hacking Shield for example-" cheeky little bastard, Bobbi glared at her, because that was exactly why she shouldn't be on this plane. Because she'd hacked S.H.I.E.L.D and was a member of the Rising Tide. "-if it was just one person continuously trying to get at the same firewall, I never would have got in. But, if there's ten of them hitting it, then it was easy to get in through the weak spots undetected... All of us working together as pieces of a puzzle to create a bigger picture."

"Your bigger picture leaked three of my missions and is a pain in my ass." Bobbi muttered dryly as Skye reached for a bandage.

"Such a nice ass too." Skye was flirting. They were on an airborne plane with Colombian Militia, and a Tesseract weapon, and Skye was flirting... Okay. "Tell me, _Agent Morse_ -" and her name should never sound that sinful. "-which of your missions were leaked? Low-risk retrieval missions, non-combat missions, delivering non-sensitive information? Any of those?" The brunette smirked at her, "any undercover ops? Anything to do with armed assailants? It's almost like the leaks were designed to be a distraction instead of getting anyone hurt or killed."

"Distraction." Bobbi repeated in realisation. The Rising Tide - possibly Skye herself - had been leaking non-sensitive information as a distraction, then she'd gotten herself caught and wanted something from an Agent higher than a Level 7. The pieces were starting to come together, but not nearly fast enough, there were still too many missing to make up the full picture.

"All done." The nimble fingers that had been on her side lifted from her skin, leaving her with a bitter sense of longing and want, but Skye didn't move. She didn't stand up and walk away, she stayed kneeling in front of her, brown eyes peering at her through her lashes. Fuck, she wanted to kiss her! But, not until she got her answers - ignoring the bond, hacking S.H.I.E.L.D.

Maybe just one kiss?

"Skye, I-" she cut herself off, frowning at the partially open door. The same man had walked past that door three times in the last two minutes. "Hand me my staves." No time for kissing-answers, Bobbi had to correct herself-when they had armed potentially hostiles on the plane. Her fists grabbed at empty air for a few seconds until the familiar, cool metal replaced it. "You need to run. Get to the lab with FitzSimmons and lock the door, don't let anyone in that isn't me, Coulson or May. Understand?" Footsteps were on their way back down the hall, they were heavy despite trying to be stealthy and light.

"Bobbi, what-" she turned to see Skye's concerned features staring at her, her hands reached up of their own accord, still holding her staves, but cupping Skye's face none-the-less.

Skye's skin felt as soft as silk to her touch.

"Skye, please just trust me on this, okay?" Please trust me, please listen, please be safe because I'll go insane if anything happens to you, Bobbi pleaded silently.

"Okay." Brown eyes ducked down from the intensity of blue and Bobbi let out a breath of relief.

The man was right outside, he paused, listening for them, Bobbi kicked at the door, forcing it off it's hinges and trapping the man under its weight for a moment. The movement stretched at her wound and she hissed, hating to make it worse after the oh-so-pleasurable feel of Skye's breath. She stepped out of the bathroom first, ushering Skye past her as she turned to the man who was quickly recovering.

A double-thunk to the head with her escrima sticks knocked him out, but the noise had alerted the other men. "Skye, run!" Bobbi reminded, gripping her weapons tighter and heading for the men, that was also coming at her. The first one was easy, the second one managed a punch to her stomach that she knew she'd feel later, the third one went for Skye and her vision clouded over with red. Before she could get to him and dismember him for even thinking of touching her Soulmate, a fourth man came at her and she couldn't do anything but watch from the corner of her eye as... Skye punched him in the nose with an audible crack that meant a broken nose, kneed him in the balls and then brought his head down and kneed him in the head, knocking him out.

Bobbi really shouldn't have been so turned on by the sigh. It was more questions that she didn't have answers to, but it was hot.

Even with her training, and Skye's surprising fighting they were outnumbered six to one. She'd faced worse odds before, but never with her Soulmate at her side, potentially in danger. Having found Skye and having her so close was really messing with Bobbi's concentration.

* * *

 

When Bobbi woke up she was on the cargo ramp with her arms bound tightly behind her back, and she could already feel bruises forming. SHe kept her eyes closed, listening and identifying; Skye was with her, the familiar scent both calming and alerting her. FitzSimmons were there, chattering and arguing about Kung Fu, she could hear the even breathing of another person in the line.

"Nice of you to join us, Agent Morse." The teasing of Skye's tone was a little strained when she finally opened her eyes and gazed down the line. Skye directly to her right, Simmons and Fitz, May on the end. Fuck, they'd even gotten May. Where was Coulson? Without him there they had to assume he was out of commission, either as a hostage or worse.

Blue eyes strained to inspect every inch of Skye, to make sure she was okay - okay was a relative term when they were tied up in the cargo hold with Colombian Militia taking over the plane. "You okay?"

"Awe..." Skye smirked at up at her, "is the big bad Agent worried?"

Yes. Very much so. "Just don't want to have to put up with your whining." Because sarcasm is easier than admitting she cares when Skye won't do the same.

"Well, I'm great." Skye announced brightly, Bobbi rolled her eyes at her as Fitz and Simmons both chimed in that while they were knocked out and bound, they were both physically fit as the proverbial fiddle. "Think I broke one guys nose." She continued proudly.

"Yeah, nice moves." Where had she learned to fight? It was street fighting of course, but when you're fighting for your life any fighting is good enough. The other guy won't stop just because they weren't following the rules of a particular discipline of self defense. "Where are the Colombians?"

"Two up there, not paying very good attention-" Skye gestured to the top deck where less than 24 hours ago she was watching as Skye packed up her van. "-apparently we're only deemed dangerous enough for two guards though, haven't seen any of the others since I woke up."

"Good." Bobbi let out a huff, struggling with her handcuffs. Normally she could get out of them, but these were S.H.I.E.L.D issue and they usually required three different keys to open. "Let them underestimate us, it can only work in our favour."

Skye glanced over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "You have get the middle one before try for the sides."

"Yes, thank-you, Agent Rising Tide Hacker." Bobbi rolled her eyes, "where did you get your training again? Because I actually went to the Academy and-"

"-and it took me three minutes, so if you don't want my advice, I'll just take it elsewhere." Skye cut in with a victorious smirk.

"What?" Blue eyes looked back to where Skye's hands were bound and-Skye was leaning back against her un-cuffed hands with said cuffs laying on the floor several inches away. "How did you do that?"

Her smirk really shouldn't be so filthy, but Bobbi's heart jumped and her Mark warmed against her skin when Skye leaned in close to her ear. "Trade secret." Her breath was hot and Bobbi had to close her eyes and clench her fists so she wouldn't kiss the girl.

Before Bobbi could say anything, or do anything stupid - like kiss her - May let them know she was awake. "Are you two done?"

"Not quite, but I can finish later." And if that statement wasn't laden with sexual innuendo Bobbi was a pink cactus... And Bobbi was in no way a pink cactus.

* * *

 

The plane was destroyed, Bobbi could still hear the echo of Director Fury's shouts, and they were grounded for at least a week until the plane was operational again. She'd filed her reports, checked her wound, and cleaned up her bunk - the glass on the picture frames were broken, but they were easily replaced. She had a lot of things she could be doing; training, sparring with May, checking her weapons, writing a three page essay on why she should stay away from Skye... And yet, here she was, at the bunk next to hers, lightly tapping on the open doorframe.

Skye looked up for a second before turning her attention back to cleaning up her bunk. "Any damage?" Because the girl didn't have much and it would be a shame if any of it was broken.

"Nothing I can't handle." Skye shrugged, deftly picking up her hula girl and tossing it into the box on her bed.

Bobbi surveyed her, drawn shoulders, defeated tone, tense around the eyes. "You want to see something cool?" Surprised brown eyes darted up to her. "I'll even help you clean up after." Clean up, not pack. The destroyed plane had been as much anyones fault as it was Skye's, and as much as she wanted Skye off the plane it wasn't going to be because of this.

The brunette pushed the box to the side and got up, brushing off her jeans. "I've already seen Coulson get yelled at by the pirate guy, so my expectations are pretty high."

"You know the oh-eight-four-"

"My memory isn't that bad, we nearly died for it three hours ago, it's kinda hard to forget." Skye rolled her eyes, following the blonde into the hall.

"Things like that, Tesseract technology, they're too dangerous to be in anyone's hands. Even Shield's." The walk to the cargo ramp was slow, and there was enough room in the hall that they didn't need to touch, but her Mark hummed happily when their shoulders brushed, and Skye's wasn't making any move to step away either. "We put them in a rocket and fly them into the sun." Skye stopped, Bobbi stopped a second later and looked back at her.

"You're saying we almost died just to destroy that thing?"

"Would you rather Reyes and her men have it?"

Once they reached the cargo hold Skye immediately went to sit on the partially lowered ramp where FitzSimmons had dragged a cooler full of beer, and Bobbi stayed back a few feet with May.

"She's smart, thinks on her feet." May commented, it was obvious who she was talking about. The risk, the hacker, the girl who was currently laughing with FitzSimmons. "She could be a good Agent." Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Recruit the girl, find out what she's hiding, and make her an asset instead of an enemy. "Need a good S.O."

"I'll talk to her." Bobbi nodded, "you have a Soulmark?" May raised an eyebrow at her. "You met them?"

"There a point to this, Morse?" May finally asked, crossing her arms and glaring through her Aviators.

Was there a point to this? Yes, how was she supposed to deal with a Soulmate who didn't even acknowledge they were Soulmates? "No. Just curious."

May rolled her eyes and walked away, muttering about Sci-Tech kids being too curious under her breath. Bobbi looked back to the three kids on the edge of the cargo ramp; Fitz and Simmons excitedly talking over each other, Skye laughing along and sipping at her beer.

"Hey, Bobbi, come watch!" Skye called over her shoulder, and for all she didn't trust the girl she couldn't deny her even this one small thing.

Her feet dangled over the edge of the ramp and Skye was warm against her shoulder as she passed over a beer. "You did good today." The praise slipped from her lips easily. She took a sip of beer to try and wash down the urge to say more, to make a fool of herself.

"Yeah?" Skye's brown eyes lit up at the simple praise. Who hadn't praised her enough in her life that four simple words were enough to make her so happy? "You weren't so bad either." The brunette teased, knocking against her shoulder, Bobbi grinned and looked down at her. Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her. Her lips looked so tempting, still curved in a smile, pink, wet from beer or her tongue - Bobbi didn't know and didn't really care.

Skye looked away and the moment was broken, replaced with contentedness and easy company as Fitz pinched his nose and started a countdown. Bobbi took another pull of her beer and let her eyes wander; mostly empty tarmac, rocket in the distance, the chattering of FitzSimmons. The rocket took off and the trio beside her let out a cheer as the cloud of smoke mushroomed out and the ship started to rise, disappearing into the sky.  
Bobbi spotted Director Fury a couple hundred metres from the plane, looking back at them, before she even had time to panic that the Director of her Agency was watching her, she felt movement against her arm and glanced over to see Skye raising her beer in the Director's direction with serious look on her features. Huh? Her blue eyes travelled back to Fury to see him nod and turn on his heel, continuing back to main building.

What?

And in the blink of an eye Carefree Skye was back, sipping her beer and smirking up at her. "So, _Agent Morse_ , this all you do for fun around here?" God, please stop making her name sound so sinful? "Rockets and alcohol? I could think of a few other **fun** things to do..."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So clearly I can't be trusted when I promise it won't take a month to update again, but I do have an excuse... I wrote this chapter in an actual paper book using a pen and everything and it turns out I have really shitty handwriting... Long story short, I can't read my own writing, spent a week trying to figure it out, then gave up and rewrote the chapter on computer.
> 
> What about if I promise I'll TRY not to make it a month before the next chapter?
> 
> P.S: No spoilers for S.H.I.E.L.D please! I haven't seen past episode 2 and I already know that Bobbi and Hunter leave, but I don't want to know who the Fallen Agent is (I had to unfollow everyone on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and blacklist AoS tags on Tumblr).
> 
> P.P.S: Just tell me it's not Daisy... Or May.

Bobbi had to steel herself with a deep breath before opening the door to Skye’s bunk. The small bunk was cluttered with the small amount of possessions and clothes that the girl had brought, the flashing light of her computer power button blinked at her from the bedside table,the blind was drawn down over the window, blocking out the pre-dawn light.  
The girl herself was tucked under a mountain of blankets that definitely weren’t S.H.I.E.L.D, so that the only thing visible was her brown curls and very top of her forehead. It wasn’t cute. Not even a little bit. Especially not when Skye shifted in her sleep and batted at some imaginary thing on her nose like a kitten.

Bobbi had to do what she came here for now, or she’d be watching Skye sleep for the next two hours. “Skye.” The girl doesn’t wake. “Skye.” An incoherent mumble in response. “Sk-”

The second Bobbi had touched the younger woman, light fingertips grazing the back of her hand as she pulled the blanket coccoon back, Skye’s own fingers had wrapped around her wrist in a vice grip and her eyes had opened with such alertness and clarity it was nearly impossible to believe she’d been so asleep as to not hear her seconds ago. “Agent Morse.” With those two - ever so sinful sounding - words Skye released the blonde’s hand and the hard look in her eyes turned to a playful smirk. “If you wanted to join me in bed you only had to ask.”

Blue eyes rolled, not willing to dignify that with a response. Because her response was that she very much wanted to ask. Because she very much wanted to kiss the smooth expanse of skin she could see peeking out from under the blankets. “Get up, we have work to do.”

“Work?” Brown eyes blinked once in confusion. “Coulson wants me to hack something?”

Well, that technically was what she’d been hired to do. “No. You and I, we have work to do.” Bobbi corrected, tearing her eyes away from the smooth skin. “So get up and be in the lab in ten minutes.” And then she fled because Skye had started to sit up and - Oh God! - she sleeps naked! And that wasn’t something Bobbi could handle so early in the morning when her Soulmark was still buzzing from the mere graze of fingertips. God, how could Skye just ignore the inner turmoil? She’d been trained for three years at the Academy and it was driving her insane.

By the time Skye strolled into the lab it was 20 minutes later - not 10 - and she was clutching a large mug of coffee. Bobbi pursed her lips, taking the coffee as soon as Skye was within reaching distance. “The fuck?” Brown eyes narrowed into a glare as Skye’s hands automatically reached to snatch her coffee back. “Gimme!”

The blonde lifted the cup to her own lips, letting the coffee - black, no sugar, apparently Skye needed strong coffee in the morning - scorch her tongue. “Every Cadet needs to pass a medical before they join the Academy, make sure they’re not gonna drop dead during training.”

“That’s great.” Skye rolled her eyes, “but, I’m not a Cadet.”

“Yet.” Bobbi let the word hang ominously in the air as she took another sip of Skye’s bitter coffee and Simmon entered the lab with a clipboard and Fitz trailed pushing a cart of instruments. “FitzSImmons will do your medical since I’m obviously not allowed, and we’ll go from there.”

“Right.” Simmons took that as her cue to begin. “We’ll start with the paperwork; name, age, date of birth and such.” The Englishwoman smiled brightly, lifting a pen and staring at Skye expectantly. “Full name please!”

“Skye.” Three pairs of eyes stared unblinkingly at her. “The only other name there is, is the one the nuns gave me and I swore when I changed it that I’d never repeat it.” Nuns? Bobbi watched with a careful eye, that only made more questions and didn’t answer any.

“I see.” Simmons tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, casting nervous eyes to Bobbi for instruction. The blonde just sighed and gave a short nod, adding name to the long list of things she needed to get out her Soulmate. “Birthdate?”

“April twenty-ninth, eighty-nine... Maybe.”

No! Bobbi had to physically restrain herself from correcting that. That was a date she’d never forget as long as she lived. July 2nd, 1988, right in the middle of naptime. What was this girl doing?

“Mothers name?” Simmons questioned after marking down the wrong date of birth. Bobbi would have to fix that later.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Skye shrugged, brown eyes wandering through the lab with forced casualness. “Same for father. And any potential siblings. My whole life is just one giant clusterfuck of question marks.” The woman answered before Simmons could say anything else., now she was picking at her nailpolish, but the tightness around her lips gave away that she was far from the relaxed and bored demeanor she was trying to exude. “I was a system baby, so anything on me was made up by the nuns anyway so this is pointless.”

System baby. That answered the question of her birthday. If they didn’t have the date of birth they used the day the child was admited to the system. There must have been someone then, someone must know who she was because there was nearly a 10 month difference between the Mark on Bobbi’s hip and the date Skye had given.

Simmons looked lost, she looked sad, she looked pitying. Bobbi wasn’t the only one that noticed the pity if Skye’s glare was anything to go by. “I see.” Simmons cast a looked around, searching for something to end the awkward silence.

“Allergies.” Bobbi was the one that spoke in an effort to remind the younger doctor what she was meant to be doing. Information. Get all the information on Skye and do a physical.

“Right! Any known allergies, health defects, diseases, or ailments?”

“No, no, no, and no.” Skye replied, boredom colouring each denial.

Simmons sighed as she marked down each answer. “You know, this would be a lot easier if we could access your medical history.”

“Be a lot quicker if you let me do it myself.” Skye’s fingers wiggled in the air, waiting for the clipboard to be handed over. Simmons cast a questioning look to Bobbi who waved her hand in response.

Simmons nodded, passing over the clipboard and pen. “Well, alright, but if you have any problems, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Sure.” Skye waved her off, already marking boxes and writing answers. “You know, this would be a lot easier on a tablet.”

“Easier to hack the system, you mean.” Bobbi cut in earning a roll of Skye’s brown eyes.

“What would the point in that be? If wanted to change the answers, I could just lie right now.” She scoffed, still ticking boxes as she spoke. “It’s just easier; plus save the trees and all that.”

Bobbi sipped at Skye’s coffee, wandering around the table Skye had lifted herself onto. From the front angle she couldn’t see any of her answers. From the side all she got was a blur of ink. From the back she could see the top left corner of the page. The question about previous injuries, Skye’s hand was still moving for that question, broken arms, broken fingers, burns, concussions, fractures. Bobbi’s throat constricted and her stomach twisted and her Mark burned as she read what she could see of the page. What had happened to Skye? Who would do that to her? Who would hurt her like that?

Bobbi got a queesy feeling in her stomach and the nearly overwhelming urge to kill someone.

The coffee was barely warm by now, but she took the distraction and gulped the rest of it down so the mug obscured her view of Skye’s injuries - so she didn’t have to read it anymore. Simmons had moved on to taking blood and listening to Skye’s heart and breathing as Fitz seemlessly passed various instruments and tools between his partner and the cart.

Bobbi didn’t need to be there, she was surpluss to the situation at that point, Fitz and Simmons were more than capable of doing a medical check. And yet she continued pacing around the lab, keeping careful blue eyes on the puppy-children chattering in the center as Skye’s medical progressed. Healthy lungs, healthy heart, a couple of old scars that Skye refused to talk about, a little undernourished, but otherwise healthy. Good.

The undernourished diagnosis rang in Bobbi’s ears after Fitz and Simmons had left to go have breakfast and Skye was staring at her expectantly. “Go eat.” She’d been living in a van, of course she didn’t have steady access to healthy meals. “Be in the gym in half an hour.” Skye was still standing in the middle of the lab looking like a confused puppy when Bobbi turned on her heel and left. Half an hour should be long enough for her to beat the shit out of a punching bag.

Except the tap-tap of feet didn’t go up the stairs and to the kitchen, instead they followed Bobbi and she had to force herself not to go postal on the punching bag. “You don’t have to pity me.” Skye’s voice was soft, but it still held an undercurrent of defiant anger. “I’m not some little dog that can’t function in society. I was raised in the foster system, not some back alley trafficking ring.” Bobbi didn’t turn around, Skye kept talking at her back as she struggled to contain her anger. Who could hurt her Soulmate so badly that she didn’t even care that she’d been hurt? “And I turned out just fine; better than ninety percent of people who were actually raised by parents-”

“You were living in a van!” The words came out before she could stop them, turning to face the girl who was glaring at her with defiant anger.

“By choice!” Was the automatic response and Bobbi couldn’t help but scoff at that. “What? Don’t think the poor little orphan can be anything other than a street rat?” Before Bobbi can deny it, can say that she never thought of her as a street rat, Skye continued. “I’ve been working my ass off for most of my life. I could take a computer apart and put it back together with ten times the processing power by the time I was twelve. I’ve been fixing that piece of shit van since I bought it when I was sixteen and it runs better now than when it was made. I hacked into Goddamn Shield from a laptop. I’ve been fighting back against people who thought I wasn’t worth anything from the day I could talk back, so I don’t need your pity, I don’t want it, and if you insist on having pity for me I can suggest a place for you to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

Bobbi really shouldn’t have been turned on by that.

She took a slow, deep breath to contain herself. “Go eat.” Bobbi repeated, softer, gentler, but in no way pitying. “Be back here when you’re done and we’ll start training.”

Brown eyes blinked once in confusion. “Training?”

“If you’re going to be here I’m not going to trust your word that you can fight. You’ll train with me every day until I know you can take care of yourself and won’t endanger everyone on this bus.” Skye still looked confused at the sudden change in tone of the conversation. “Every morning at six-thirty until I’m sure you’ve got at least enough training to pass the Academy exams.” Bobbi had to look away again because the bond was affecting her mentality and looking at Skye was starting to feel like looking at the sun. How could she be so affect and Skye so not? “Think you can handle that?”

Skye scoffed, turning on her heal, her voice was further away when it reached Bobbi. “Think you can handle me?”

No. Not at all.

* * *

 

Okay, so maybe Bobbi could have had her training sessions later in the day and it wouldn’t have made any difference, but any other time of the day Skye would be awake and alert. And when Skye was awake and alert, she was flirty and teasing and Bobbi couldn’t stand to be around her without aching to kiss her.

Turns out that whilst Skye wasn’t completely alert - shuffling into the gym in her loose sweat pants and a-size-too-small tank top - she was awake enough to know that Bobbi was staring. The smirk on her lips was absolutely filthy for someone who was still rubbing sleep from her eyes. “You’re late.” She grabbed the tape from the seat next to her, gesturing for the brunette to sit across from her.

“By, like, ten minutes.” The words were muffled by a yawn as she flashed the time on her phone at Bobbi. 13 minutes, actually, but it was the closest Skye had come to being on time all week. The first day Bobbi had had to wake her up an hour after they were meant to start, so at least Skye was getting up on her own. “I wouldn’t be so late all the time if you let me sleep in.”

“If I had to suffer through early morning training for three years, so do you.” Bobbi’s fingers are gentle and practiced as they wind the tape around Skye’s.

Skye snorted and Bobbi glanced up to see her rolling her eyes. “You’re nuts if you think I’m sticking around for three years.” Her taped fingers flexed as Bobbi moved onto the other hand. “Never stayed anywhere more than a few months.”

“So what? Get what you’re looking for and leave? Just like that?” The tape moves deftly between her fingers.

“I’m here because Coulson invited me-”

“You’re here because you want something-”

“I don’t want anything except to sleep in-”

“I’m not stupid, Skye, I know you want something from someone higher than Level Seven.” Bobbi hissed, watching the girls eyes widen ever so slightly. “Play whatever games you want, but just know that until you prove yourself I’m going to be there every time to stop you.” Bobbi was aware she was towering over the girl, she was aware she could look intimidating, she was aware that nothing she did seemed to have any affect on Skye. “You need to decide, Skye-” brown eyes glared back at her. “-if what you’re looking for is worth more than what you could have. With Shield.” With Bobbi. “Or if you’re going to let whatever it is define you.” Skye looked like she’d just been given the answers to a million questions, only to have a million more be asked.

Coulson’s voice sounded over the speakers, calling everyone to the briefing room. Bobbi held Skye’s gaze a moment longer, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for the woman to give her something. A reason to hate her. A reason not to. Anything. Skye looked away, stepping back and picking at the tape around her fingers. “Like I said-” Skye tossed over her shoulder as she started to leave, pulling the tape from her hands. “-never been anywhere more than a few months.”

Bobbi is left in the gym feeling like she might have been on the cusp of a breakthrough. Skye was breaking. Three weeks in and Skye was finally starting to break, and Bobbi hoped she would open up soon so she knew whether or not she was allowed to hope for a future. Coulson was waiting in the briefing room with the rest of the team though so she would have to wait to contemplate her never-ending Skye-based frustrations.

* * *

 

The news that Doctor Franklin Hall had been kidnapped had hit FitzSimmons hard as they babbled over each other about his theories and a class they once attended. Bobbi had been to one of his lectures once too, the man was brilliant, an absolute genius. The kind of scientist Bobbi had once hoped to emulate before she transfered to Operations.

The crime scene was nothing like Bobbi had ever seen. A semi-truck was overturned with the cab caved in from the force of... Agent Mack said it was nothing. There had been clear road, and then the truck had colided with nothing. May was standing guard, FitzSimmons were examining the front of the truck and the area around it, trying to figure out what happened. Skye was wandering around and Bobbi was taking the Agent’s statements.

There was no doubt to Bobbi that it - whatever it was exactly - had been a targeted attack intended to take Dr. Hall when there was the least security surrounding him.

Fitz was the one to bring up Gravitonium and the word still left a foul taste in Bobbi’s mouth. A scientist in S.H.I.E.L.D custody, an unknown element, and the previously mentioned scientist had been kidnapped.

“Guys!” Skye was in the lab with FitzSimmons, Bobbi just happened to be there too, waiting for the search to finish on anyone else that had notable mentions next to Dr. Hall or Gravitonium. “High school dropout here.” The blonde frowned at the back of Skye’s head.

“Okay, well, uh...” Simmons looked perplexed for a moment, trying to rephrase their explanation of Gravitonium. “You see these... Squiggly bits-” the amusement on Skye’s face made her roll her eyes.

“She’s jokin’, Simmons, she understan’s.” Fitz cut in before Simmons could make a fool of herself. “You’re a hacker, we know tha’ means you’re not stupid.”

“Oh. Right.” Simmons flushed before resuming her normal explanation.

“Spoil sport.” Skye grumbled to Fitz, sticking her tongue before her tablet dinged and her eyes widened at the screen. “Well, looks like we know where Dr. Hall went.” That caught her interest and she had to fight for a spot to seen the screen between the little science babies.

“Ian Quinn?”

“Of Quinn Worldwide, after Stark Industries he’s the biggest privatised research company.”

“Better yet.” Skye hopped off the counter she’d been sitting on. “He used to work with Doctor Hall until Hall accused him of stealing his research; Quinn made billions - holy crap, billions with a B - and Hall stopped publishing papers after Quinn took credit for a theory they released together on-you guessed it; Gravitonium.” FitzSimmons spoke over each other about the injustice and the outrage as Skye started walking, FitzSimmons followed, and it was apparently up to Bobbi to steer them towards Coulson. “Oh would you look at that!” Skye stopped in the middle of the hall, Simmons crashed into her, Fitz crashed into Simmons, they were all too entranced in Skye’s tablet to get themselves out of the mess so Bobbi had to get them walking again. “Quinn is holding an unveiling party at his property in Malta this weekend with all his investers and partners. Apparently he’s revealing something that will ‘change the face of science’.”

Bobbi tapped her comms on. “Sir, we’ve got something.” She felt like she was leading a group of sleepy toddlers; Skye refused to look up from what she was reading and nearly walked into a wall - twice - Simmons was trying to glue herself to Skye’s back in an attempt to read over her shoulder, and Fitz kept trying to bustle upbeside them to read as well, except he’d get flustered and stammered every time his arm accidently brushed Skye’s. By the time they reached the briefing room Coulson and May were already there. “Ian Quinn-” Skye tapped at her tablet the pages she’d been reading from transferred to screens around them. “-genius, billionaire-”

“Playboy, philanthropist?” Coulson smirked with a shake of his head. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

“He’s got history with Doctor Hall, and Gravitonium-” Simmons provided ever-so-cheerfully.

“-an’ he’s hosting a party to make a big reveal this weeken’.” Fitz added, pointing at one of the screens. “Tomorrow, actually.”

Coulson looked like he was about to speak, about to lay out plans to infiltrate Quinn’s party and rescue Dr. Hall. “In Malta.” Bobbi had to say it. Because S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t have jurisdiction in Malta. They couldn’t go in guns plazing, they couldn’t take over the property, they couldn’t even flash a badge without being kicked out. Because S.H.I.E.L.D could do absolutely nothing in Malta.

“Well, that complicates things.” Coulson sighed, casting his eyes around the room. “Shield has no jurisdiction in Malta; we can’t go in, and we can’t extradite him.” He explained to Skye, since everyone else should already know.

Silence rang in the room, hanging heavy in the air.

“I could go in-” the blonde began, hands planted firmly on the table separating them all.

“We have no jurisdiction.” Coulson cut in with a shake of his head. “If you’re caught...”

“So I won’t get caught.” Bobbi challenged, Skye started tapping away on her phone, FitzSimmons started talking about theoretical ways to get a message to Dr. Hall, May crossed her arms. “I go in alone, Quinn will be expecting Swat teams and Strike forces, not one person. I go in, I get Doctor Hall and I get out whilst Quinn is busy inflating his ego at the reveal party.”

Coulson shook his head again, “if he’s even half of what Stark is, that place will be on lock down, no-one gets in without his say-so. We’d need to establish a cover, it could take months or years to have an Agent work their way in close enough to get to Doctor Hall.” They didn’t have months or years, they didn’t even have more that 24 hours. “We could try to get the Maltese government on our side, but even that would take too long...”

“Or I could just walk in.” Skye spoke up with a smirk, all eyes darted to her. To the tiny girl who had hacked her way in and who wanted something from them. Before Coulson could say that, no Skye couldn’t go in because S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t have any authority in Malta, the girl spoke again. “I’m not an Agent,” she reminded and... Bobbi couldn’t argue that because technically it was true. “And, I have an invite... Well, techincally an e-vite, but whatever.” A flash of her phone screen showed what she’d been tapping away at... She’d hacked Quinn Worldwide from her phone. From. Her. Phone.

The silence was slight awed this time as Skye smirked at them all.

“No. No way.” Bobbi was the first one to speak. “You’re not going in there alone.” All the scenarios of Skye being caught and hurt and killed and so much worse flashed through her mind and made her want to vomit.

“It’s not my first rodeo, I can take care of myself.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” No it wasn’t, she was afraid she’d never see her again. “You hacked your way in, just like you hacked Shield, what’s to say you won’t jump ship and join Quinn? What’s to say you haven’t already joined him and are just looking for a way to get back with everything you’ve taken from Shield?”

“Why would I work with Quinn and then give him up, huh?” Skye shot back, “I was offering a solution. You can’t go in, I can.”

“And that’s rather convenient, isn’t it? Out of all the trained Agents, you’re the only one that can go in. Alone. With no-one there to make sure you don’t sell us out.” Her voice was raising and she wasn’t even sure that she was trying to stop Skye to protect her. Because everything she was saying was true, and that mixed with the distrust made for a dangerous combination.

“Enough!” Coulson stopped either of them from shouting back. “FitzSimmons, get Skye fitted with a comms unit, Morse with me.” May stalked off without needing to be told to redirect the Bus to Malta... Or somewhere close to Malta.

Bobbi followed Coulson to his office, eyeing all the memorabelia on the shelves to avoid having to look at the disapointed look he was giving her.

“Is it the girl?” Coulson asked, blue eyes feeling oddly like her Dad when she got in trouble as a kid.

“Excuse me?” Did he know? He couldn’t know, she’d never told anyone that Skye was her Soulmate. If Coulson knew, though, it was cause for probation at best - dismissal at worst. Any Agent was meant to report and file as soon as their Soulmate was found, especially if it was during a mission or on a case, even more-so if it involved someone they worked with. Bobbi ticked all the boxes; met her Soulmate, met her Soulmate on a case, her Soulmate became part of the case and was now a consultant she worked with 24/7.

“Is it the girl? Did she do something to offend you?” Coulson clarified, “did she stab you in the heart with an alien sceptor? Because that’s the only reason I can think of that you would show such open hostility towards a member of your own team.” He thought she hated Skye. She wished she could hate Skye, that would be so much easier than the constant turmoil in her own head. “I chose you for this team, Morse, because not only are you the best, but you’re a team player.” Right now Coulson didn’t look anything like the Mr. Unassuming people always thought he was, but ever inch the Level 8 Agent that was Fury’s right hand man. “I’m not seeing that now. I’m seeing an Agent, my Agent jeopardising this team every time I turn around because... Because why, Agent Morse? You offered to train Skye, to work with her, why do that if you can’t work with her?”

“I don’t trust her.” The words came out automatically, Coulson opened his mouth to say something, most likely to vouch for Skye’s allegiance. “She’s Rising Tide, she’s a hacker-”

“All arguments I’ve heard before.” Coulson cut in. “And you worked with her before, why not now?”

“Because I don’t trust her.” He didn’t understand. How could he understand what was going on in her head though? “She has training from somewhere. Psychological training, physical too I’m guessing. But, you don’t just get that good at resisting without having training.” Bobbi finally burst, “I mean, I do have training and I still can’t fight it, but Skye-she’s-”

Coulson held up a hand to silence her. “What are you talking about? Did Skye tell you this?”

“No, Sir.” The Mark on her hip tingled, she absently let her hand find the spot where it was over her clothes. “She didn’t need to.” Bobbi let out a sigh as her thumb tugged down the waist-band of her pants just enough to show the words of her Mark.

Coulson’s eyes widened as the words came into view. “Is that...?”

“Yeah.” Bobbi let her pants cover it once more and settled her hand over the spot. “The first words I said to Skye, nothing. No reaction at all, not a twitch or a blink or a quickening of her heart rate even. Nothing.” Still nothing. Still no acknowledgement, no questions, no apparent craving to inhabit the same space as her. “That takes training, and discipline, and control... And if she has that level of control then what else is she hiding? What’s she really here for?” And when she got it would she leave S.H.I.E.L.D? Would she leave Bobbi? “I don’t trust her.” But, every fibre of her being wants to.

* * *

 

Despite Bobbi’s objections, and May’s disapproving glares, and every other reason under the sun; Coulson was letting Skye infiltrate Quinn. Alone. Alone-ish.

May, Fitz and Simmons were running back end from the Bus, waiting for Skye to cnnect to Quinn’s system. Coulson and Bobbi were waiting just outside the properties perimeter from the laser grid to be shut down so they could go rescue Dr. Hall. And Skye was the one the whole plan hinged on.

Bobbi could still feel the press of Skye’s body as she gave the younger woman a crash course in disarming an assailant. Her Mark had made her uncomfortably wet and needy when Skye’s back pressed to her front, her Mark fit snug against the top of the younger woman’s ass - and Dear God, that had to be where her Mark was!

Skye hadn’t reacted at all.

“Sir. About earlier,” they were alone, their comms were off, it was the only time she could talk about it. “You know, about Skye being-”

“Your Soulmate.” Coulson provided as they waited. Waited. Waited for Skye to come through or bail. “You know I have to report it, it’s protocol to have something like that on file.”

Which was exactly why she hadn’t said anything when she found out. “Right.”

“But, you know how paperwork can accidently be filed wrong. Or not at all.” Coulson was looking at her with that Mr. Unassuming look again. “If it starts to affect your duties, however, I may have to check that it’s filed properly in the future.” Do your job right and I’ll keep your secret.

“Yes, Sir.” Bobbi tried not to feel so relieved.

“Comms on.” And just like that Coulson was back on mission and Bobbi knew she had to be too.

“Sir,” Fitz came over the comms sounding like a panicked Scottish puppy. “Skye’s gone off comms.”

Bobbi tried not to shoot Coulson a smug look - she really did - but didn’t she say this would happen? Didn’t she say just yesterday that Skye would jump ship and join Quinn? Althought she had to admit she was surprised, as far as she knew Skye hadn’t got whatever it is she wanted from S.H.I.E.L.D.

“May-maybe she just went to the bathroom.” Fitz suggested hopefully, “I know I wouldn’t wan’ anyone listening if I had to use the facilities.” Poor niave Fitz, too sweet and trusting for his own good. Skye hadn’t gone to the bathroom, she’d flipped on them. Just like Bobbi knew- “oh, wait, the signal’s coming through!”

This time Coulson was the one looking smug as Fitz deactivated the laser grid - Bobbi through a pebble just be sure instead of risking life and limb on the genius’ word. The two of them are nearing the main building when Bobbi’s hears the crash of breaking glass and the shouted order for someone to ‘get her’.

“I’ll get Doctor Hall, you get Skye.” Coulson commands, and Bobbi knows it’s because he knows her mind won’t be on the case if Skye could be in danger. Coulson goes in one direction and Bobbi towards where the crash came from. She rounds the corner in time to see Skye climbing out of a pool whilst two men are trying to swim towards her.

What, did they all just decide to go swimming in the middle of a chase?

“Bobbi.” Sky runs at her and the girl looks like a wet little puppy as she clings to the blonde’s arms.

“Are you okay?” A quick scan of the younger woman’s body doesn’t show any outward injuries, but she can’t be too sure right now. “Are you hurt?” The two men in suits have finally climbed out of the pool.

“I’m okay.” Skye nodded and that’s all Bobbi needs to hear before she turns on the men.

One starts to aim his gun at her and he’s an idiot because he just climbed out of a pool so the gun is useless, but she lets him aim it, and then kicks it out of his hand before he can shoot. A punch in the head and he’s dazed enough for her to get him into a headlock. The other guy tries to come at her, aiming a kick at her head, but she turns at the right time and the man in the headlock takes the blow instead, knocking him unconscious. Bobbi tossed him back into the pool before facing the second man, reaching behind her back for her escrima sticks. The thunk-thunk of metal against bone is sickly satisfying before she digs the electrified barbs on the ends into the mans neck and watches him twitch and splutter. Water and electricity don’t mix well.

“Are you okay?” This time it’s Skye asking as Bobbi abandons the bodies in favour of the woman.

“I’m-” the shakes violently beneath them. “Coulson.” It’s not hard to follow the path of incapacitated guards that Coulson left behind to the room with Doctor Hall and Coulson... On the ceiling. Why the Hell were Coulson and Dr. Hall on the ceiling? How were they on the ceiling?

Skye peeked in the little window on the door beside Bobbi, still shivering and wet. “What the fuck?” Yeah, Bobbi mused, that summed it up pretty well.

The ground shook again, violently, knocking Skye off her feet, and toppling Bobbi on top of her. That one must have shaken the foundations of the building because a piece of concrete crashed to the ground nearby and Bobbi held herself over Skye a moment longer just to be sure she wouldn’t be hurt if any more concrete fell. By the time they were back on their feet Coulson and Dr. Hall were standing on the wall-what?

Coulson and Dr. Hall were standing on the wall as casually and easily as she was standing right now. Oh, that wasn’t good. The Gravitnonium must be unstable. The Gravitonium in the middle of the room that is spiking and swirling with each shake of the ground and shift of gravity in the room. If they don’t do something now she doesn’t know what would happen.

Coulson looks like he’s trying to reason with Dr. Hall who isn’t looking very sane in Bobbi’s opinion, the building shakes again and this time Bobbi manages to keep both her and Skye standing and they watch in slow motion as Coulson holds onto something to stay hanging in the air and Dr. Hall falls across the room. Falling. Flailing. Trying to reach out and grab something.

The Gravitonium spikes out and Bobbi can see the soundless scream as the metalic-grey substance swollows the scientist and Coulson is dropped to the ground. The real ground.

Coulson comes over to the door and unlocks it, still looking shocked as he looks at them both. “Get Fitz and Simmons in here to secure that thing.” He stepped out of the room, starting to head for the exit. “Good work, Skye.” As an afterthought. Bobbi looks back into the room, to the Gravitonium. It’s not spiking anymore, the ground isn’t shaking, the gravity isn’t shifting. She doesn’t want to stick around in case it all starts again.

Especially not when Skye is soaking wet in that ridiculously sexy pink dress.

* * *

 

Skye is already in the gym when Bobbi walks in at 6:00 AM the next morning; her hands are wrapped - messily, Bobbi will have to keep working on that - and she doesn’t even look away from the punching bag when the blonde approaches. Instead of saying anything, Bobbi walked over and held the bag still, feeling the punches and absently making notes on how to improve them as she waited for Skye to speak.

Ten minutes and Skye didn’t say anything. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes is when Bobbi calls an end to it, gently tugging the brunette away from the bag despite her protests. “What’s going on?” Bobbi sits on the bench and waits for Skye to sit too before asking. Skye takes her time, taking a sip of water, looking down at her hands, picking at the tape, before finally looking up to Bobbi.

“You ever wanted something so bad you’d do anything to get it?” Yes. But, Bobbi didn’t answer because this wasn’t about her. “I have. I do.” Present tense. Blue eyes watch Skye carefully as she speaks. “Mike Peterson was a good guy, you know? And I told him not to trust Shield when Shield was what saved him. And Reyes just wanted that Tesseract thing for herself, not to help people... I want to help people, I want to make sure there’s not another Ace Peterson who isn’t as lucky to have Shield save his father.” Skye looked away, her fingers reaching into her sports bra - Bobbi had to remind herself now was not the time to think about the contents of Skye’s bra, no matter how tempting. A memory card, probably the same size as her thumb nail. “No kid should have to grow up without their parents.” Bobbi had never heard such raw truth from Skye before. The truth. Finally, after three weeks, she was finally getting the truth.

Skye held the memory card out and Bobbi was hesitant to take it. “What’s this?” Small, blue, non-descript.

“Everything I have.” Skye’s shining brown eyes looking back to her.

“On us? On Shield?” That didn’t feel right, but she had to make sure.

“On me.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this one to be longer, especially after such a long wait, and I promise I haven't abandoned Students of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Bobbi stared, blue eyes unblinking at the small blue plastic for three days until she started to see blue everywhere she looked. Skye’s small blue plastic. Skye’s memory card. Skye’s life. It had been three days since Skye had given her the memory card and she hadn’t brought herself to do anything yet. She hadn’t looked at the information, she hadn’t handed it in to Coulson, she hadn’t even talked to Skye about it. The blue plastic had sat in her pocket - suspiciously close to her Soulmark - for three days, slowly driving her insane.

Should she read it? It was personal, Skye’s who life was supposedly on it. But, Skye had given it to her, that was as much of an invitation to read it as anything. There was a small part of her that knew Skye would know she would read it, so what if it was a virus and Skye was just playing her? Should she hand it in to Coulson, tell him her theories and just leave it up to him.

She could hear the footsteps approaching, but she didn’t move. “Deep thinking.” May mused, Bobbi was standing at the punching bag, but her taped hands were hanging limply at her sides.

Bobbi shook her head with a scoff. “You have no idea.” May raised an eyebrow at her in response.

“You wanna talk?”

‘Skye is my Soulmate.’ The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them. ‘Skye gave me a memory card that is either a virus or information on herself.’ Those words didn’t come out either, hovering in the back of her throat. ‘I’m going insane because I’ve been living with my Soulmate for a month and she doesn’t give a shit about our Bond.’

“Hypothetically.” Bobbi started slowly, “if you didn’t know whether to trust your Soulmate and they gave you something that would either prove or break that trust, would you hand it in or keep it to yourself?”

May raised her eyebrow again before speaking. “Hypothetically.” May was mocking her. Great. “The trust isn’t based on what she gave you, but what you believe she gave you.” Nothing in the file Maria gave her said May was this philosophical.

The memory card felt like it was burning in her pocket. Or maybe it was her Mark burning, urging her to trust Skye. “Right.” Her fingers slipped into her pocket and fingered the small card.

“If you’re finished.” May’s eyes flickered pointedly to the punching bag.

“Go for it.” The blonde was already unwrapping her fingers as she stepped away from the bag. She could have sworn she saw May smirk and shake her head as she was leaving, but when Bobbi looked back her back was turned and she was jabbing steadily at the leather bag.

“She’s in the kitchen!” May called when she was almost out the door and after a moment of shocked silence Bobbi decided that she might be a good spy, but May would always be better.

True to May’s word Skye was in the kitchen, slurping the last of the milk out of her cereal bowl like a child. “Hey!” Skye let out a startled yelp when Bobbi’s fingers wrapped around her arm, pulling her out of the kitchen. “What the Hell, Bobbi?” Skye yanked her arm free, glaring at her, but Bobbi pushed her the extra ten feet until they were both safely locked in her bunk. “What is your problem?”

“You.” Bobbi snapped before she could stop herself. Skye. Skye. Skye. She was the cause and solution to so many of her problems, problems she didn’t have before being assigned to this team. “What’s on the card.” The tiny blue rectangle of plastic was in her hand. Skye’s eyes zeroed in on it and Bobbi saw the cracks again. The cracks of a girl who was searching, who was nervous, who had only had herself to rely on her whole life.

“I told you.” Skye mumbled, turning away and it was so different from the confident, flirty, cocky Skye that she was used to.

“Why did you tell me?” She was going to give in, no matter how much she wanted to, she needed answers. Just one answer. She just needed for Skye to say the word, to admit they were Soulmates. “Why did you leave the Rising Tide, people don’t just change their allegiance like that. Why-”

“Because I want to stay.” Skye’s eyes were shining and wet when she turned back around and it made Bobbi’s heart clench. “I want to know what it’s like to be somewhere more than a few months. I want to know what it’s like to help people. I want t-to wake up in the morning and not feel like a piece of shit orphan that nobody wanted.” Bobbi felt like Skye was revealing her Soul, spilling all her deep dark secrets. This wasn’t all of them, Bobbi knew, not by a long shot, but it was perhaps her oldest most damaging insecurity. “I get that here; you train me, and I help people, and it feels like some weird, dysfunctional family, and some days I don’t even think about how no-one ever wanted me, not even my parents because it feels like-like something in my Soul is telling me I have a future here.”

In her Soul.

“If me being here bugs you that much, you could’ve just said and I would’ve-”

The panic set in before Skye could finish. “Don’t leave.” If Bobbi sounded desperate it was because she felt desperate. It took a moment of long silence for her to realise that she didn’t want to Skye to leave. No matter if Skye did turn out to be untrustworthy and duplicitous, she can’t stand the thought of her being anywhere other than close to Bobbi. “Don’t leave.” She repeated, significantly less pleading than the time before. “When I’m around you-” everything in her body screamed for her to kiss the girl. “-I feel like I’m trying to solve a puzzle with no edge, and none of the pieces fit. I’m trained to read people, to know what they’re thinking, but I can’t read you.” Bobbi didn’t even realise her fingers were winding through Skye’s hair, that she was drawing her closer, that her Mark was humming in the most pleasurable way.

“Everyone to the Briefing Room!” Skye jumped away from her, leaving her cold and empty as the brunette swiped at her eyes and ran a hand through her hair. Coulson had the worst timing in history.

“I told you, I’ve never been anywhere more than a few months... Maybe I’d like to try for longer.” Skye ducked her head as she left, shying away from her. Maybe that was the most vulnerable Skye had let herself be in a long time. She said herself, she wanted to stay here, she’d given up her secret so she could stay, Bobbi knew if she gave up a secret like that she wouldn’t want to look at the person after.

* * *

 

When Bobbi saw Skye next it was after she’d been to the train station with May and Coulson, Coulson had claimed it as a ‘training exercise’, but Bobbi had the feeling it had more to do with getting a read on Skye himself, when she wasn’t in close vicinity. The thought alone of Skye being away from her, somewhere she couldn’t protect her - no matter how much the younger woman could protect herself - made her Mark prickle uncomfortably.

The feeling didn’t get any better through-out the day; Skye had returned from the crime scene unharmed and with two exasperated senior Agents trailing her, but then they’d been separated again. Bobbi had never been a clingy child, she’d never had separation anxiety when her parents left her somewhere, but when Skye, Fitz and Simmons were left behind in the mini-bus she wondered if this was what it felt like; the crushing worry, the fear, the difficulty breathing, the way her Mark prickled.

She hadn’t felt anywhere close to this bad when Skye had gone into Quinn’s compound alone in Malta, so why now?

Coulson had to remind her to focus on the case and not her Soulmate or he might have to check that he’d filed everything correctly. That was going to be a noose around her neck for a long time, Bobbi figured, and Coulson had the ability to kick at the bucket she was figuratively standing on. The question was whether Coulson was that kind of man or not.

The question was actually if Skye was safe right now.

“So, how do you think she’s doing it?” Bobbi wondered after talking to the innkeeper, “think Skye is right and she’s psychic?” She had to admit, knowing about the innkeepers tumor certainly cast doubt.

Coulson gave her a long, amused look. “And here I thought you were a smart one, Morse, there’s no documented proof of precognition or extra-sensory perception.”

“There was also no proof of aliens before Thor.” Bobbi pointed out, “just because it’s not documented, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“I think whatever Amador is doing is a little closer to home than Asgard.” Coulson commented easily.

Bobbi stopped herself mid eye-roll when her Mark prickled again, painful in a way that demanded her attention just as Coulson entered the room Amador had been occupying. Whatever Coulson thought about ESP or Precognition she knew something was wrong. Not even involving the case, something was wrong with Skye and it was making her nearly physically sick.

* * *

 

Bobbi was right, something was wrong. Akela Amador was quickly becoming one of Bobbi’s least favourite people, and each reason could be counted as the bruises on Skye’s body. Bruises from being in a van when Amador over-turned it. Bruises from putting herself between Simmons and some sharp corners.

Fitz and Simmons iced each others bruises, and talked over each other as they reported to Coulson about Amador and the feed they’d intercepted before the van had been rammed. Bobbi sat with Skye, feeling oddly reminiscent of only a couple of weeks ago as she cleaned the cut on the back of her head. May was stand opposite them, listening as Skye explained her side of the incident, pausing when the antisceptic stung the cut.

“The feed was showing the van?” May questioned, Skye didn’t say anything for a moment as Bobbi cleaned the cut, the only sign she was in pain being the clenching of her fists.

“Yeah, like it was coming from the other car.” Skye confirmed, after the blood was gone the cut didn’t look so bad. “Infrared or some shit, I could hack the feed again, get a better picture.” She offered, letting out a slow breath when Bobbi put a sealant on the cut.

“I’m done.” Bobbi’s voice was soft.

“Thanks.” The smile Skye gave her was warm before she turned her attentions back to May, neither one making any motion to move; Skye sitting between Bobbi’s legs, and one of the blonde’s hands resting casually on her hip. “I know I said ESP or something, but I’m pretty sure ESP isn’t hackable, so I guess you were right.” Skye’s head ducked sheepishly as she admitted that and Bobbi braced herself for a scathing comment from May... That never came.

“Now you know.” May said instead, turning on her heel. Skye relaxed, her body pressing back against Bobbi’s. The blonde’s breath caught and her Mark buzzed against her skin at the contact. She wondered idly if this was what it would be to wake up next to her in the morning before she dismissed that thought because nothing even remotely close to sharing a bed would happen until they were on the same page in regards to their bond.

“That went well.” Skye commented sarcastically after a long, silent moment. Her body was so warm, and her Mark was tingling and buzzing in a way that reminded her of when it formed in Kindergarden; warmth and calmness and a sense of everything being right in the world that was lulling her into a state of comfort and contentedness.

“Better than I thought.” Bobbi admitted, resisting the urge to close her eyes and savour the moment. “May’s big on criticism to make you better.” Skye scoffed and she could practically hear the roll of her eyes. “I heard she once made a baby Agent cry and he went on to be one of the best at Shield.”

“I’ve had tough love before.” Skye commented, her mind flashed back to the list of injuries in her file. “But, compared to that, May is practically a teddy bear.” Who had hurt her and made her believe it was tough love?

Bobbi grinned, imagining the face May would give her if she heard that. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said that.” Skye laughed and it made her feel warm in a way she hadn’t felt since before the divorce. “No, really, I’m sure it’ll amuse her... Or at least give her something to aim for.”

The quiet warmth was broken by the doors sliding open with a hiss and Fitz and Simmons’ banter as they led the way for Coulson. Skye sat up and the warmth was gone, but Bobbi didn’t let herself linger on it, sitting to attention and addressing Coulson instead. “Skye,” Coulson raised his eyebrows at them, shooting Bobbi a disapproving look. “Do you think you can get back into the feed from earlier?”

“Is that a serious question?” Skye stretched as she stood up, “because that’s childs play and I find it kind of insulting that you have to ask.”

“Good.” Coulson smiled disarmingly. “FitzSimmons will help.” Skye looked like she wanted to argue with that, Bobbi knew she was more than capable of hacking whatever the feed was on her own, but the brunette bit her tongue and just nodded. “Keep me updated, Agent Morse.” He didn’t even need to ask if she was staying. Skye had a concussion, numerous cuts and bruises, and had just been attacked by Akela Amador, Bobbi wasn’t going anywhere after all of that had happened when she wasn’t there.

“Yes, Sir.” The affirmation came easily, especially when Skye reached up to the back of her head where her hair had matted with blood. “Don’t touch.” She hissed, slapping the hand away, earning a disgruntled frown in response.

Before Coulson left her leveled her with a knowing, disapproving look. “Try to remember this is a workplace, Ladies.” Skye didn’t seem to be paying attention anymore, instead she was trying to fend off Simmons who was insisting on shoving painkillers down her throat, but Bobbi had the decency to at least flush. Not that they had even been doing anything, just sitting.

“Bobbi!” The blonde tried not to react to the way her eyes lit up when she saw her. “Tell Simmons I’m fine, you cleaned me up, I’m not even bleeding anymore.” Fine wasn’t really the word Bobbi would use. Concussed worked well. Or injured. Maybe victimised might be going a bit far, but that wouldn’t really stop her from using it.

“You have a concussion.” Bobbi reminded, earning a roll of Skye’s brown eyes. “You should be sitting down, not-”

“Oh please.” Skye interrupted, “I’ve hacked with worse than a concussion before, and it won’t be the last time either.”

“It’s okay, Agent Morse.” Fitz spoke up before they could start arguing in earnest. “I’m not a CS expert like Skye, but I can help out since we’re at a dead end in trackin’ Amador.”

“I don’t need a babysitter!” Skye huffed, “I’m not an invalid.” Though it probably would have proven her point better if she hadn’t swayed on her feet.

Her skin was warm under Bobbi’s fingertips as she held her steady, peering into the brown eyes still trying to glare back at her. “Sit.” The command came out harsher than she meant it to, but it got the girl to sit at least. “Fitz will start the hack, if he needs help, he’l let you know. Right, Fitz?”

The Scotsman looked nervous, but was nodding none-the-less. “R-right. Of course. You just relax, Skye.” He turned on the spot, absently scratching his ear. “I-I’ll jus’...” He turned again and if he didn’t stop soon Bobbi was going to stop him “There!” How Fitz ever made it through the Academy was a mystery to Bobbi as she watched his entire posture brighten when he finally spotted the computer on his 5th turn.

“I’m seriously fine, Bobbi.” Though she stayed sitting where Bobbi had pointed her to before.

“I’ll believe you more when you can stand without falling on your ass.”

* * *

 

May had offered to take the first watch with Akela Amador. The feed Skye had hacked before being rammed in the mini-Bus, and then again with Fitz - while she had a concussion - wasn’t of Amador. It was Amador. The camera was in her left eye, and there was someone else watching, someone with control over Amador and who was giving her orders through the eye.

Skye was watching as movie with science babies, and Coulson was filing paperwork, so Bobbi took the time to sit with May. “How did you know?” The question came out after ten minutes of silence as they watched Amador do pull-ups on a bar attached to a doorway. “About-how did you know that Skye was-” her Soulmate. How did May know Skye was her Soulmate? But, the words didn’t want to come out.

“For a spy, you’re not subtle.” She could practically hear May rolling her eyes. “The kid is, though. You gave it away, not her.” So it wasn’t just Bobbi, May could see it too that Skye was completely indifferent.

“That’s not normal, though, right?” Bobbi had to know. “Skye resisting, not caring, that’s not normal is it?” The half indifference, half flirtations. The way she just seemed able to continue with life as if Bobbi was just another person she worked with.

May stared at her for a long moment, “no.” The woman finally admitted.

Silence stretched between them as Amador moved from pull-ups to sit-ups. Seeing what Amador saw, watching through her point of view as she worked out, it only served to strengthen her dislike of Coulson’s previous protege. This was the person - though she was ordered to - who had driven a car into the side of the mini-bus with three unarmed puppies inside until turned over. They had been lucky that the worst injury had been Skye’s concussion.

“Decided if you trust the kid?” Always the kid, never Skye. May always generalised the younger three - Fitz, Simmons and Skye, as kids.

“I’m starting to.” She wanted to, so very badly, but how could she trust someone who was so resistant to the pull of the Soulmarks? The memory card weighed heavily in her pocket, never anywhere but on her person. “I’ve got to go.” Her Mark tingled as she stood up and fingered the tiny blue card in her pocket. “Have fun with Amador.” She tossed over her shoulder before heading for her bunk.

Her computer whirred to life and the memory card stared back at her from the palm of her hand. This card was Skye, everything about her apparently, and it all fit on something so small. There was no password or encription when she put the card in, but then she supposed Skye had had it on her person in preparation of giving it up, so she must have removed the protections on it. File after file after file opened; newspaper clippings, foster records, orphanage files, social services, missing childrens reports from all over the world all about babies in the 88-89 time frame... A document. Most of it was blacked out, but one thing was painfully obvious; the S.H.I.EL.D logo in the top right corner dated April of 1989.

That’s what Skye wanted from S.H.I.E.L.D; her life. Her life, her birth, her parents, whatever was on that document was everything she’d been looking for and S.H.I.E.L.D was keeping it from her.

Bobbi started sifting through the rest of the files, maybe she could find something to give her a lead on the what the document might, on how to get access to it. There were photos. A lot of photos, most of them taken from security cameras, she’d guess, from the angle of them. But, they weren’t of Skye. They were Director Fury, in his long trench coat, with his eyepatch, all 6 foot 2 of him. More files from the orphanage; health records, foster records, school records, all with the S.H.I.E.L.D logo and Fury’s signature in the corner.  
Reports of asian or part asian baby girls that went missing in 88 or 89 - there was a horrifying amount of them - the ones that had been solved with big red X’s through them. Possible parents, Bobbi realised, Skye must have thought or hoped.

Sometime around the fourth foster home - the one responsible for at least half of the injuries on her file - Bobbi took a break to grab a bottle of tequila because she couldn’t continue sober. The hospital record attached to the social service record came with the name Mary Sue Poots - no wonder she’d changed it to Skye - and a list as long as her arm for what had been done to her. She was 12 at the time. Who would do that to a 12-year-old?

The tequila burned as it went down her throat.

Outside her bunk Fitz’ lilting Scottish tones mixed with Simmons’ English and Skye’s laughter as they passed through the hall and it was enough to bring her back from her murderous rage. Skye was here, she was safe, those monsters couldn’t get their hands on her anymore.

Except Skye wasn’t safe, she could be hurt, Akela Amador was proof of that. Bobbi could read any more, so she closed her computer and opened her bunk door with a hissing sigh just in time to see Skye as Fitz and Simmons ducked into their own bunks.

“Agent Morse.” God, how could two words be so full of innuendo? Her own name no less. If Skye didn’t stop addressing her so sinfully it was going to become very uncomfortable and awkward when her superiors addressed her. “Want to join me for a drink?” The tequila was still in her hand, but was gently tugged from her loose fingers with a sly smirk from the brunette.

“You shouldn’t be drinking.” Bobbi said instead of giving in, taking the bottle back.

“You know I’m over twenty-one, right?” 25 actually. Worse yet, Skye didn’t even know that.

“You also have a concussion.” Bobbi reminded earning a grimace and tongue stuck out in her direction.

“Fine, whatever, guess I’ll have to entertain myself.” Skye turned and tossed a wink over her shoulder. “Goodnight.” Fuck, she was so screwed!

* * *

 

It was not a good night. It was a really shitty night. Because she was sure Skye was being louder than necessary on purpose. When she finally did manage to get to sleep - long after she was sure Skye was asleep - it was fitful and she was woken less than an hour later.

At least she’d been trained to function on little or no sleep at the Academy.

The chair next to her squeaked as Skye dropped into it and Bobbi glanced over. “Hey.” She looked tired, her hair was messy from being woken barely two hours after falling asleep. “Coffee?” The cup warmed her fingers as she took it. “We finished the glasses. Pretty good work if I do say so myself.”

“Only good?” The coffee was good, just the right amount of milk, which Lance had never been able to figure out no matter how many times she told him. “You must be losing your touch, I might have to trade you in for a new hacker.”

“Well, I didn’t want to brag, I have to pretend I’m not awesome sometimes so the regular people don’t get jealous.” Skye propped her feet on the desk as she sipped at her own coffee. The silence was comfortable as they sipped their coffee, broken by the occasional yawn from Skye as they watched the security cameras to see Coulson heading to see FitzSimmons in the lab before heading in their direction.

When the door creaked open, neither of them were surprised to see Coulson. “Briefing room. We need a plan.” The backscatter glasses were part of a plan that Skye and Fitz had come up with, but not a whole plane. Maybe 12 % of a plan.

“I’ll get the coffee.” Skye offered as she got up. “This means I don’t have to be up at stupid-o’clock for training, right?” She tossed over her shoulder.

“Right.” Bobbi nodded, blue eyes following her out the door.

Coulson would go intercept May in her hunt for Amador, Simmons and Fitz would prepare to remove the eye implant, Skye would go with Bobbi who would be using the newly created, never tested backscatter glasses to carry out Amador’s orders whilst Simmons did her job.

“Does no-one else see the problem?” Skye was frowning across from her, turning disbelieving eyes to each of them in turn. “Seriously, aren’t you guys meant to notice the little details?” The accusation was shot at FitzSimmons who shared a confused look. “Amador is what, five-four? Five-five, max.”

“So?” Coulson prompted, Skye looked at him in disbelief.

“So.” She began pointedly, “ Bobbi is, like, six feet-”

“Five-eleven.” The blonde cut in helpfully.

Skye rolled her eyes, “as if that makes a difference. There’s still six inches at least, and what if the guy controlling on the other side of the feed notices that? Or he leads us into a trap? I’d really rather not get killed today.”

The silence was nearly deafening. As good as she was at undercover, even Bobbi couldn’t shrink 6 inches for a case. “You’re not doing it.” Because that was the first horrifying solution her mind provided. “No way in-”

“I didn’t want to do it. I’m just saying, it’s kinda obvious; Amador is closer to a Smurf, and you’re an Amazon.” She had a point, but having a point wasn’t enough to change the plan because Skye certainly wasn’t going to be the guinea pig wearing the glasses. Bobbi wouldn’t allow it. Especially with the reminder that it could be a trap.

Shit!

“Well, if May were here, we’d have a solution, but she’s not and we don’t have the time to think of something else, so either Morse goes in or we take the time we don’t have to waste and try and come up with something else.” Coulson was the one to speak. He was right, May was the right height, and whilst she wasn’t black her skin was certainly closer to it than Bobbi’s. The only person worse than Bobbi to be doing this mission was some generic white guy Agent that was 6 feet tall and had no people skills. Like that Ward guy that worked with Garrett.

Bobbi steeled herself and hoped Skye’s programming was enough to take the attention off Amador long enough for Simmons to get rid of the camera eye. “Grab your computer, we leave in ten minutes.”

* * *

 

Bobbi sat still and waited for Skye to finish programming the last minute details on the glasses, syncing the feed to her computer and adding an adjustment that she said would make her feed appear shorter. It was an untested theory, but as long as it fooled the guy giving the orders, it was good enough for Bobbi.

“So.” Skye started as she tapped away at her computer.

“So.” Bobbi mimicked only slightly mockingly. Skye flicked her ear for that, sticking her tongue out at the rearview mirror.

“Did you decide what to do?” Her voice was casual, but not nearly casual enough. How could she read her so easily in normal situations, but not even get an inkling of recognition about her Soulmark. Bobbi raised an eyebrow back at her through the mirror. “My card. I saw it in your computer.” Right, the tiny blue tip peaking out from the edge of the memory card slot contrasted with the silver finish of the computer. “You gonna tell Coulson like a good little Agent or what?”

“Did you expect me to?” Did she? Did Skye give it to her knowing that she’d give it to Coulson, or hoping that she’d keep it to herself.

Skye’s shrug was entirely forced and not at all nonchalant. “I mean, I don’t exactly broadcast it, so if you’re offering I’d prefer no-one else know, but I figured it was probably against some stupid rule, so whatever.”

“Why’d you give it to me?” She could have skipped her and gone to Coulson, could have kept it to herself and left Bobbi searching, but she gave it to her. Skye didn’t answer for a long moment, and Bobbi started to turn to face her, only to have the younger woman turn her head forward again.

“Don’t look at me.” Skye scolded, “you’re going live in; three. Two. One.” And just like the pressure of the whole mission was on her shoulders. The orders came through and Bobbi felt a tug on her ponytail. “Good luck.”

She never did get an answer.

* * *

 

The circles and curves and lines stared back at her. A wall full of lines and circles condensed onto four regular sized pages. The person controlling Amador had been just as much of a puppet as she had been, and he’d died for it. So the person controlling him was the next step to whoever was in charge, and someone high up in the chain of command wanted whatever those circles and lines were.

She knew she should hand it in to Coulson, along with Skye’s memory card. And yet both were securely in her bunk instead of her C.O’s office. Her thoughts were broken by a knock on her door and an excited Simmons on the other side. “Agent Morse!” No matter how many times she insisted on Bobbi, Simmons still insisted on Agent Morse - and it didn’t sound nearly as dirty as when Skye said it. “Fitz and I have been working on improving the Night Night gun and the dendrotoxin formula and were wondering if you wanted to come see, since you did give us the solution to the paralysis problems, and-”

“Sounds great, Simmons.” Bobbi cut in before she could start rambling. She checked that the weird pattern she’d drawn were locked in her drawer, and her computer was shut down - taking the memory card as she did so - before leaving with the English woman who was practically bouncing on her feet. “Have you thought about making it smaller?” Geeking out with the science babies was easy, it took her mind off her worries and problems. “A rifle is great, but imagine mass producing a handgun or something as an alternative to real bullets. It’d save so many lives from the kill shot.”

Fitz already had a design drawn up of a possible Night Night handgun, and was working on a prototype when they got to the lab, muttering about smaller bullets and that it was too heavy. “With smaller rounds, we’d have to have a more concentrated formula.” Simmons explained, holding up the casing for what Bobbi guessed was the size of the smaller handgun round. “The problem is we can’t take out any more of the paralysis particles or it won’t work, and if we take out the stabilising agent, it’ll just break up when it’s fired.” Yeah, she guessed that was classed as a problem; when either it wasn’t strong enough, or the bullets wouldn’t get to their target.

Bobbi peaked through a microscope at a sample of the formula on a slide. “Have you thought about a different stabiliser? If you get a stronger stabiliser to mix with the dendrotoxin, you wouldn’t need to take out any of the paralysis, and you could use less of the stabiliser so it’d fit in the smaller round.”

“Yes, but, we’ve tried all the stabilisers we could think of-” Simmons started, a frown setting into her face.

“-one of them turn’ the formula solid-” Fitz added absently as he tightened something on his prototype.

“-and another just melted the casing!” Simmons looked down right scandalised, as though the casing had melted as a personal insult to her intelligence. “I suppose we could try to put it in a stronger casing.” She mused out loud, “but then the case wouldn’t break up upon contact and that’d be a bit problematic because we’re going for non-lethal...”

“Why don’t you create a new formula?” Sure, it wasn’t as simple as just saying ‘create a new formula’ but, “If anyone is smart enough, it’s you two.” Simmons shared a look with Fitz as silence surrounded them for a moment.

“Of course!” Simmons exclaimed brightly, rushing to her station. “If you can find it, make it. You certainly are a credit to Sci-Tech, Agent Morse.”

Before she could argue that she’d actually transferred to Operations Fitz was at her side, handing her the prototype. “See, I was thinkin’ of addin’ a chip so only Shield Agents can use it, you know, for safety, but that’d add at least another ounce, and the Agents would each have to have a chip as well to activate it, and that would mean putting a chip in everyone at Shield’s hands which is just impractical. What do you think about a wrist band or somethin’? Every Agent wears a wrist band that activates the pistol. As long as you’ve got a wrist band you could pick up any one and fire, and if you don’ have one it’s still a pretty good thing for throwin’...” The gun weighed nicely in her hand - a little heavier than she was used to, but any Agent worth their salt could adapt to a different weight - and she let herself become emerged in the science and complexity of Fitz and Simmons.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, forewarning, I was all over the place with this chapter! Like, literally, it does not have a single coherent train of thought in it.

Skye was sitting in the living room with her laptop, tapping away at something with lines of code flying across the screen. Her brown eyes were bright and a smirk played on her lips as she typed, waited a moment, typed again, waited some more, typed-Bobbi shut the computer earning a yelp and glare in response.

“Do you have a death wish or something?” Skye really did look like she wanted to use the computer as a weapon, it was enough to give Bobbi pause. “I was in the middle of-”

“So, I guess you don’t want this back?” The tiny blue memory card flicked between her fingers and it shut her right up. “We’re gonna have a chat and then you get this back.” Skye’s eyes followed the plastic raptly as it was lowered back into the blonde’s pocket.

Skye stared, maybe if she stared hard enough it would will the memory card back into her possesion without the conversation. “What’s there to talk about?” Really, what was there to talk about? Everything was on the card. Everything. She followed the blonde though because Bobbi hadn’t told anyone about the card and her intentions yet, so if all she wanted was a conversation for her silence, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that had happened in her life.

Bobbi’s scoff was tossed over her shoulder as the blonde opened her bunk. “The things we have to talk about is a conversation of it’s own.” Skye’s eyes flittered around the small bunk, in the 5 weeks since she’d been recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D it was the first time she’d seen the inside of the blonde’s personal space as more than a glimpse. “Why don’t we start with erasing your past and work our way up to Director Fury.” The bunk was mostly bare, but she could see small touches of Bobbi - because this was Bobbi, not Agent Morse. Like the photos on the nightstand, and the blanket that was definitely not regulation issue, and the computer sitting open on the bed with a Star Wars screensaver. Was this what Bobbi classed as a personal space? It looked more like that one foster family she’d had when she was 12 who insisted on appearing absolutely perfect to the point that she wasn’t allowed to have any of her own things anywhere but in her closet.

Skye’s eyes roamed over the pictures as she made herself comfortable at the desk without being invited to. “Thought you said you were divorced.” One of the pictures was easy to identify as a wedding; Bobbi in a white sun dress on a beach with a bouquet of flowers, a man next to her with his arm around her, a small group of people surrounding them, and a priest - recognisable by his collar.

“I am.” Bobbi’s answer was short, slightly harsh, it gave Skye a moment of pause. “I liked the picture.” It was a nice picture, even if she did only know one of the 9 people in it.

“So that’s him, huh?” Dark eyes, dark hair, shorter than Bobbi though. Handsome enough, in the rogue-ish, unshaven way.

Bobbi was silent, Skye could feel her looking over her shoulder. “Yeah, that’s him.” The bed creaked as Bobbi sat and Skye finally tore her eyes away from the picture, from the smiling happy image of Bobbi on her wedding day. “But, we’re not talking about me.” Of course not, that would be too easy.

“You already know everything about me, it’s only fair.” Skye shrugged instead of giving. It wasn’t in her nature to just give up, especially not when the conversation was about her and all the details of her sordid past. “What’s the idiots name?”

She could see the calculating look in the blue eyes staring at her. Bobbi may have training to read people, but Skye had learnt from neccessity all her life. “Who said he was an idiot?”

“Divorced you, didn’t he?” She smirked earning a roll of blue eyes in response.

“If you want to find your parents and your past so badly, why did you delete everything?” Bobbi questioned instead of answering, Skye resisted the urge to pout at not getting her way. “Deleting yourself, changing everything, not existing wouldn’t exactly help you find what you’re looking for.”

Skye turned away from the wedding picture, “the name I had isn’t my real name, the birthday I have isn’t mine, nothing on the files was real. I followed the trail as deep as I could and it led me here. It also told me that I wasn’t the only one looking, and I wasn’t going to let my information - however fake it may be - be available to the entire world.” No-one needed to see all her hospital visits, and how many times she’d been sent back. And Skye certainly didn’t want to see the pity in peoples eyes when they found out. So she got rid of it. She got rid of everything.

Whether that satisfied Bobbi or not, Skye didn’t know, but she didn’t press the topic. “What about the babies?” Right, the talk wasn’t over, Bobbi probably had an actual list of things to talk about. The babies were a whole other achey point in her life. Skye didn’t say anything, turning her eyes back to studying the pictures. “Lance.”

“Huh?” She cast a curious glance at the blonde.

“My husband-ex husband.” Bobbi corrected herself with an eye-roll. “An English mercenary; Lance Hunter.” Tit for Tat; Bobbi was throwing her a bone and telling her something she wanted to know in exchange for her entire life.

“English, huh?” Skye smirked, brown eyes lighting up. “So, you like foreign guys? Should I warn Fitz? Or would you prefer Simmons?” Bobbi’s blue eyes rolled at her - again - and she groaned. “What about both? It’d be kinda hot in a weird way, I guess.”

Bobbi had a smirk of her own on her lips. “They’re not really my type.” Skye’s eyes flicked back to the wedding picture, to the scruffy, unshaven, roguish Englishman. Was that her type? Was that her destiny? If so, it didn’t seem to be working out for her and Fate had majorly fucked up somewhere along the way. “Babies.”

Right, the blonde had an agender. Not to say that Skye didn’t have an agender first, but it didn’t mean she had to like this. “It was a long shot; what if I was one of them, and they’d been looking all this time?” She absently traced a finger around the frame of a picture featuring a Bobbi that couldn’t have been older than 5, and two people that must have been her parents. Bobbi had never wondered who her parents were, or if they loved her. She’d never had to search through the faces of missing babies and wondered if she was any of them - and knowing that most of them would never be found. “It was bullshit, didn’t do anything but make me depressed.”

“I’m sorry.” Skye had a harsh comeback on the tip of her tongue about exactly where Bobbi could shove her ‘sorry’, but she bit it back when she saw no pity in those pretty blue eyes.

“Thanks.” Is what came out instead after a muted pause.

The silence stretched between them again, Skye was just about ready to leave the conversation altogether - memory card be damned. Was her memory card really worth this conversation? After so many years Skye thought she’d be numb to the hurt by now, besides it’s not like she didn’t have all the information backed up so this whole talk was just another way to remind her of what a shitty past she had had. “I can look into the redacted file.” The offer was soft, spoken as the blonde looked at her through her lashes.

“But?” Skye prompted, nothing was ever as simple just having it offered to her.

For a long moment Skye didn’t think Bobbi was going to answer her. “How do you know Fury?” That was it? Of all the things Bobbi could have asked in exchange for her offer, she just wanted to know about Nick Fury?

“I noticed him one day, I was, like, sixteen or something and there was a second set of footprints in the snow so I hacked the security cameras and found him.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, “and I kept looking and I kept finding him. I thought he was some creepy stalker that wanted to kill me or something, but then he’d start leaving things.” Bobbi couldn’t have looked more surprised if she tried, which meant she must have been really surprised because Skye was pretty sure she’d been trained not to show her surprise. “You know, like money and blankets and food and stuff. I caught him one day and demanded answers and he said he was just someone who was looking out for me. It was shit, but I got his fingerprints from it and it was classified to Shield... Makes you wonder why the Director of Shield was so interested in an orphan, huh?” Skye could see the moment Bobbi regretted her words about S.H.I.E.LD not being concerned with orphans. “Fury kept coming, I kept digging and a couple years later I found the redacted file and I realised where he came from and how he always knew where to find me. That’s when he stopped coming.”

“You knew Fury?” The shock was still there.

Skye let out a scoff, “that’s a strong word; more like he was around... Until he wasn’t.” That really did seem like the most accurate explanation. “It’s not like we had long talks and braided each others hair-” Bobbi let out a short laugh at that, no doubt trying to imagine the formidable 6 foot 2 Nick Fury braiding hair, or even with hair on his head. “He turned up every few months, sometimes he brought stuff, sometimes he told not to look too closely at something, and I figured I should probably listen to the guy who always knew where I was and was creepy as fuck, so I stayed away from whatever it was.” She put the picture frame of the Bobbi’s wedding back on the desk and stood up. “Listen, are we done here? You can keep the card, I just want to go.” Bobbi didn’t look like they were anywhere close being done, but Skye was, so Skye did what Skye always did when Skye got rattled; Skye ran.

Skye really had to stop thinking about herself in the third person!

* * *

 

Brown eyes darted around the room; Coulson, May, Fitz, Bobbi, Simmons. They were all talking, planning, strategising about the latest case. Skye had no doubt that they’d find Miles - he was good, but S.H.I.E.L.D was better - it was just a matter of which side she chose to represent.

Bobbi had offered to look into her redacted file - even though Skye knew that it was restricted to Level 8 and above and the blonde was only a 7 - and she figured it wouldn’t take her too long to get Coulson to help her too if she told him. Plus, she had a good thing going here and it had only been just over a month. A month of working out with Bobbi, and stopping bad things from happening, and actually feeling like she could be more than the orphan hacker that nobody wanted.

Like she could be more than the Markless orphan that nobody cared about.

“I can get to Miles.” The words bubbled out before she’d even finished making the decision and the room went silent. “I can get close without him suspecting anything, just-” he was actually someone she once considered a friend, a morally questionable, slightly anarchist friend, but a friend non-the-less. “-just don’t hurt him?”

“Skye.” Coulson’s tone held a warning in it. “Do you know Miles Lydon?”

“In the, uh, Biblical sense.” Simmons flushed and stammered, Fitz looked entirely too uncomfortable, May looked as stone-faced as usual, Coulson coughed lightly and looked away. The most interesting reaction was Bobbi’s clenched fists and the hard glint in her eyes, as if she’d caught her red-handed sleeping with Miles right that minute. “Like I said, I can get close to him, but he’s not a bad guy, he’s with the Rising Tide; freedom of information, you know, not kidnapping.”

May rolled her eyes across the room, adressing Coulson as she turned on her heel. “Don’t adopt this one.” The sliding door shut with a quiet hiss after her.

Coulson cleared his throat with a small, attention commanding noise. “New plan;” because they’d had such a solid plan before. Skye resisted the urge to roll her eyes, all they’d had before was talking over each other and the fact that he was Austin. “Morse, go with Skye and bring in this Lydon guy-” Bobbi looked like she wanted to protest, odd how she always wanted to protest when it came to her. “-I’ll have May set course to Hong Kong while you find out who he gave that information to and what they want with Chan Ho Yin.”

Basic as far as plans went, but basic had a way of going perfectly right or horribly wrong. She just hoped Miles didn’t take it badly that she gave him up. In her defence, though, she told everyone in the Rising Tide to stay away from S.H.I.E.L.D whilst she was there.

* * *

 

It was far to easy for Skye to get Miles to go back to his apartment once they were inside. She looked around the apartment; it was nicer than she remembered, better furniture, and the TV definitely hadn’t been that big when she’d been here last.

“You sure he’s coming?” Bobbi was poking through the kitchen, using her batons to move things and look behind them before scrunching her nose and moving onto something else. It seemed to be an actual system she had.

“He’s coming.” As if on cue the obnoxiously loud ding of the elevator sounded and the blonde in the kitchen automatically transitioned into Agent Morse, holding her batons at the ready and tip-toeing into place behind the front door.

Miles was humming as he unlocked his front door and tossed his keys down, grinning at her. “Hey, Baby.” Out of the corner of her eye she could see Bobbi’s knuckles turning white from gripping her batons too tightly, and the glare she was sending them was nothing short of deadly. His steps were long and purposeful as he cross his living room and brought his hands to her face, leaning down for a kiss, only to get the corner of her mouth when she turned her head. “Babe?”

Bobbi stepped out of the shadow she’d been hiding in and the look on her face was murderous. It was actually scaring Skye a little. “Hands. Off.” The words were laced with so much venom that Miles automatically let her go and held his hands up in surrender.

“Hey.” Skye frowned, stepping between the unreasonably angry blonde and Miles. “Chill. Agent Morse.” Except this time her name wasn’t flirty and teasing like she usually used it, this time she had a glare of her own and it reminded her of the first couple of weeks when they’d done nothing but argue with each other.

“Agent?” Miles went on the defensive, stepping away and lowering his hands. “You brought one of them here?”

So much for an easy talk. If Bobbi hadn’t gotten so pissed for no reason they might have had a chance at a simple talk and then leaving with no-one getting angry. “We just want to talk, Miles, that’s all.”

“Talk?” His voice was rising, Skye took a slow step back from him. “You brought one of those suits here, what are you one of them now? Secrets and lies and everything we fought against?” He took a step closer to Skye. “You-” he was cut off by Bobbi yanking him back by his collar.

“Touch her again and I will end you.” Agent Morse - because there was no trace of Bobbi there right now - hissed in Miles’ ear, one of her batons held tight against his neck. “Understand?” Miles let out a vague affirmation. “Good. Now, you’re going to sit down and tell us everything we want to know, or I’m going to arrest you and you can tell us from inside a cell. Understand?” Even as Bobbi was speaking Skye could see the determination glazing over Miles’ features.

“If you’re going to torture me, just do it and I’ll expose you all for what you really are-mindless thugs who have no-” as he was ranting Morse was cuffing his hands behind his back. “-issues about civil liberty or-”

“Shut up!” Bobbi grumbled, shoving him none-too-gently towards the door. Skye held in a groan, this had not gone to plan at all. And at least this time it wasn’t her fault; this Royal fuck up was all on Bobbi and whatever stick was up her ass.

In the SUV with Miles in the back, Skye climbed into the passengers seat and glared at the blonde. “What the Hell is your problem?” It was hard to sound appropriately pissed in a whisper. “I could have got him to help if you had gone all psycho for no reason.”

“No reason?” Morse turned a harsh glare on her, blue eyes clouded with anger. “No-just forget it, Skye.”

“O... Kay?” She got the distinct impression she’d done something wrong.

They talked that morning, Skye gave up everything about her past for a feeble hope that Bobbi wouldn’t tell Coulson about her motives, Chan Ho Yin was reported missing, she uncovered that it was Miles’ hack, she revealed that she knew Miles, and.... And nothing, that was when cold and Distant and violent and angry Bobbi made her appearance. Was Bobbi pissed that she knew Miles? Why?

The drive back to the Bus was filled the occasional snide comment from Miles, stone silence from Morse, and an itching under her skin to escape a bad situation. When they got there Morse started dragging Miles through the plane to the cell that she had been kept when she was first brought in from her van.

Coulson was waiting in the hallway with his arms crossed and a disaproving look on his face. “I thought you said you could talk him in?”

“I could.” Skye muttered, shooting Morse a dirty look as the blonde brushed past without a word. “I’m not the one with a stick up my ass who went all ‘kill on first sight’.”

* * *

 

Coulson let’s Skye be the one to talk to Miles, but she’s not deluded enough to think that every movement and word isn’t being recorded. “I told you to stay out of Shield, Miles.” She says after checking that Morse hadn’t been too harsh with him.

“Come on, Skye, this is stupid.” He rattled his handcuffs for emphasis, slumping down in his chair. “I’m an American, I have rights, those people can’t just kidnap and deny me rights. You used to believe in that-”

“Someone’s life is in danger, they don’t have time for red tape bullshit, Miles.” Skye frowned, it had been hours since Chan Ho Yin went missing, even she knew that the first 24 hours were the most important if they were going to save him. “Whatever you released, it got a man kidnapped and we’re trying to save him.”

“We?” Miles scoffed at her, eyes narrowing. “You think you’re part of their ‘we’? You’re not one of them, Skye, you’re one of us, you’re-”

“I’m what?” She cut in with a glare. “Am I someone who would just sit there and not say anything when information I leaked was used to kidnap and potentially kill someone? Shield are the good guys, Miles.”

“Good guys?” Miles sat forward abruptly, the metal of the handcuffs clinking loudly in the otherwise silent room, and his chair scraping across the floor. “They kidnapped me, Skye! How’s that for good guys?” The door slammed open right in that moment to reveal the one person Skye didn’t want to see; Bobbi Morse.

“Out.” Morse wasn’t looking at her, but considering Miles physically couldn’t leave, she had to be talking to her.

“Excuse you!” Whatever stick was up her ass needed to be removed. Skye actually thought they were getting along and on the way to being friends - if not more from the occasional flirting. Bobbi ignored her and stalked to the table, a plain manila folder slapping down on the table. Skye had to hand it to her, Morse definitely knew how to command a presence. “Hey, I was-”

“Did you know he was selling his hacks.” Cold blue eyes finally turned on her and Skye wished she hadn’t. The room went quiet.

“What?” Her accusing glare turned on Miles. “Tell me you’re not.” He didn’t tell her he wasn’t.

Bobbi had a sinister smirk on her face. “Go ahead.” Her arms acrossed over her chest. “Tell her that a mans life is a million dollars to a hacker that’s not even smart enough to cover the fact that he was paid off.” Miles withered under both of their glares.

Miles’ eyes flickered between them, calculating, trying to decide which option would help him best. “It was for us, Baby.” Apparently Skye was the one he deemed to be a weak link. “For you and me. Our future.”

Skye hadn’t made it 24 years in the system and on the streets by giving in whenever someone tried to sweet talk her. Miles was no different.

* * *

 

Every times she closed her eyes she could see the building going up in flames and the horror and fear would return; what if May and Coulson didn’t get out in time? What if Fitz and Simmons had been down there too? What if Bobbi - stick up her ass and all - had been down there and unable to get out?

Coulson and May returned to the bus singed and morose, but otherwise unharmed. May stalked past silently, and Coulson followed, only stopping to close the open images on the big screen of Chan Ho Yin. Fitz was diligently working on the prototype second generation Night Night pistol. Simmons had come to sit with her after they had watched the building burn with people inside and nothing they could do to help them, both of them morosely sipping beer that hadn’t been cold in a long time and not saying anything. Miles was locked back in the cage, no doubt planning to reveal everything he could about S.H.I.E.L.D the first chance he got. And Bobbi had been in the gym for what felt like hours, punching and kicking anything that came within her reach.

“Is it the first time you lost someone?” Skye’s voice was barely more than a murmur to Simmons.

“Yes.” The English woman’s voice was just as quiet, her fingers picking at the label on her beer. “It’s awful! Horrible! The field is a horrible place and I never should have pushed Fitz to leave the lab.” Glassy tears were shining in her eyes. Was it the time someone in her vicinity had died, Skye couldn’t help but wonder.

“Maybe.” She had to admit it wasn’t a good day when someone died right in front of her. “But, what about Mike Peterson, and Akela Amador? They wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you guys being here, and they’re only the first ones, there will be a lot more, and they’ll owe their lives to you.”

Simmons smiled at that, a sad little smile, but still a smile. “Thank-you, Skye, it means a lot that you think that.” Ever prim and proper, but it was part of her charm. “I think I’ll go finish up in the lab now.” Her beer was left abandoned on the coffee table as she left and Skye was left sitting alone. Always alone.

Alone since she was abandoned as a baby, alone after some unknown Fate decided that she wasn’t worth a Mark, alone after every family sent her back. The feelings of abandonment always simmered under the surface, but Skye had had years of experience in pushing them down and pretending they didn’t exist.

Her beer was gone in three gulps and she set her mind to doing anything other than wollowing in self-pity. Miles was a sellout, Coulson was talking to him right now, probably threatening to put him in some dark secluded cell if he didn’t behave himself. Miles wasn’t one to listen to threats. Simmons was taken care of for now, and she would take care of Fitz. May didn’t even like her at the best of times. Bobbi.

The steady thump-thump-thwack could be heard all the way down the hall from the gym. Morse had been hitting the bag so long that her sweat had soaked right through her tank top and her breaths were ragged.

“Hey!” The hits faltered and the bag swung back at Bobbi, knocking into her body and making her fall back. “Shit! Sorry!” The blonde’s skin was hot and slick with sweat when Skye reach out to help her up.

Bobbi didn’t look at her, but ripped her arm out of the brunette’s grasp. “What do you want, Skye?” That’s it? Nothing about Chan Ho Yin, or Miles, or how any of the rest of the team were doing? Just a vague demand meant to push her away.

“Is it something I said?” Their talk in the morning had been hard, but that was for her, not Bobbi. Bobbi had been the one with all the power and who was getting all the answers. “Something I didn’t say? Something I could have said? What the Hell is wrong with you today?”

Blue eyes blazed with anger and disbelief as they stared back at her. “Me? You! You’re what’s wrong with me!” Skye clenched her teeth and kept her mouth shut as Bobbi yelled. “You apparently think that asshole who couldn’t give a shit about what he does affecting anyone else is worth your time and being a part of your life, but not-”

But not, what? Not Bobbi? Bobbi was a part of her life, probably one of the biggest parts of her life at the moment. And it wasn’t like Bobbi ever expressed any interest in having anything more than a working relationship, anything that had happened had been Skye’s olive branch. So that left Bobbi having a grudge against Miles, which seemed ridiculous because today was the first day they had crossed paths.

“You know what,” Bobbi shook her head and turned back to the punching bag. “Forget it. Just go back to your boyfriend and just forget about it until you’re ready to admit it.” The punching started again, a steady thump-thump-thwack that was as clear a dismissal than if she’d actually said the words.

“Let me know when you get the stick out of your ass.” Skye tossed at the blonde before leaving. Whatever her problem was, she could sort it out on her own.

* * *

 

Miles was left in Hong Kong with a nanny bracelet and no way to get back to Texas. Skye had tried to bargain with Coulson about leaving him there with no resources and no way to get any, but he seemed intent on ignoring her and she knew which battles to pick. Coulson was the one who brought up how she knew Miles, and the Rising Tide. Why had she gotten into hacking?

It was as big an opening as she was ever going to get. “Do you know who your parents are, AC?” The question was a simple one, but it baffled the Agent. “Where you came from, if they loved you? Did you come home from school every day in your teeny tiny little suit-because you probably came out of the womb in a suit-and say hi to your Mommy and Daddy and know with absolute certainty that you were home?”

Coulson sat on the edge of his desk, watching her. “Skye?”

He knew she was an orphan, the whole team did, probably all of S.H.I.E.L.D knew. “I didn’t; when I came back from school it was seven different homes and none of them loved me. None of them wanted me. None of them were my parents. And I wanted that.” She didn’t have her memory card, Bobbi still had it, but Bobbi was being an asshole and she didn’t trust assholes to follow through on their words and look into redacted files they had promised to look into. “I wanted it so bad I started looking. And looking. And looking. And all I found was one document. Redacted. By Shield.” Coulson sat still, watching her silently and letting her talk. “That’s why I started hacking, that’s why I got into the Rising Tide, and that’s why I’m here.”

* * *

 

It was dark, it was quiet, the hum of the plane was somewhat soothing, but even reciting algorithms in her head wasn’t enough to lull her to sleep. Coulson had asked for a copy of the redacted file, and a promise that she wouldn’t go looking through S.H.I.E.L.D databases herself - and he was even trusting enough to take her at her word. Fitz had gone to be early, Skye wasn’t even sure that May ever slept, and Simmons was still pottering around in the lab.

Her door opened with a hiss, she kept her eyes shut, wondering which of them it would be. And what they wanted. Sleep was easy to fake, she’d learned to do it young - her second foster home left them alone if they were asleep so it was a survival instinct more than anything. The scent of sweat and Scotch filled her senses.

“Hey.” Bobbi. Had she gotten over whatever was pissing her off. “This’d be a lot easier if you could admit it, you know.” Admit what? What had she done that had upset the blonde so much? Was it because she asked about her husband? Was it that sore of a topic? She was the one who was so casual about it during their first meeting. “A reaction, a hint, anything.”

Skye was nearly ready to stop pretending and just ask, but before she could the light footsteps got closer, and the smell of sweat and Scotch got stronger. The feeling of warmth on her forehead kept her quiet and still until long after Bobbi had left, the hiss of Skye’s door closing and the blonde’s ding a full rotation sounded and then silence.

What. The. Fuck!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im an asshole, and an awful person, and I'm about a year late in updating this, so if anyone is still reading... sorry for the wait!!!!!  
>  Hopefully it won't take so long with the next chapter!

Bobbi Morse was hung over.

Not enough to impair her ability to do her job, certainly not enough to stop her from kicking someone's ass, but enough for her to be grateful for the tint on her sunglasses. Inside. The morning sun glared her from where she had nestled herself in the copilot seat, May to her right with the cup of tea she'd brought the older Agent along with her own bitter coffee.

"I fucked up." The words tumbled out when the silence had stretched long enough and she was awake enough to form the thoughts. May didn't ask, and Bobbi knew she wouldn't, but she didn't tell her to leave either, which was good as an invitation as any. "I kissed her." May didn't look away from the sky, "I mean, it was just on the forehead, and she was faking sleep pretty good, but there was lips to skin contact that definitely shouldn't have happened." It was actually, an admirable attempt at faking sleep, and in her slightly inebriated stats, she wouldn't have known if not for the sharp intake of breath when she'd kissed her.

The silence stretched, blanketing them as the morning began. Bobbi knew what time it was, knew that Skye would be up and getting ready for training. She also knew that it had been four weeks since Skye's first S.H.I.E.L.D medical and the start of her training, which meant she was due for another physical to make sure she was doing everything right. Muscle gaining and endurance and stamina had been the focus of the first month to make sure she wouldn't drop dead in the first week, but now they actually had to start with real training. Training like sparring and fighting techniques, and things that meant way too much physical contact than Bobbi was entirely ready for.

The blonde sighed, glaring at the dregs left in the bottom of her coffee cup. "Don't you have somewhere to be, Morse?" May's question was in a pointed tone, but held no real venom, Bobbi got the message anyway; 'stop hiding and do your Goddamn job'.

"Right." Hiding was too easy, especially when she was trying to hide with May, but she was the one that volunteered to train Skye, and be responsible for Skye, and she couldn't very well do that from the cockpit,

Skye was already in the gym when she got there, waiting With badly taped hands, and not meeting the blondes eyes when she entered. Bobbi knew she had no logical right to be angry, and that she'd been completely unfair yesterday and nearly jeopardised a mission because of her own stupid feelings. She was actually lucky that Coulson had brought her up on report for what happened. But, how was she supposed to keep a logical head when Skye - her Soulmate - openly admitted to sleeping with that piece of shit sell-out hacker, but wouldn't so much as react to the Bond that she knew must exist. Skye was fine with running around having sex with people like Miles Lydon, but wouldn't even admit that they were Soulmates! It pissed her off!

When Skye finally did look over it was with an accusation on her lips. "Took you long enough, Barbie." The words didn't hurt, but the look in her brown was a mix of defiance and confusion that left Bobbi guilty and angry all over again.

"No training this morning." Bobbi said instead of snapping again. "You have a medical With Simmons at eight, and you can't compromise the results by already being worn out." She turn on her heel, there was still an hour and a half before the medical, and she didn't even need to be present for it, so her job was done for the morning.

"That's it?" Of course it wouldn't be that easy to leave. " I don't know what I did to piss you off, but you could at least have the curtesy to tell me instead of being pissed, getting drunk, and kissing me." And just like that, it was out in the air. Skye was admitting to being awake and witnessing her kiss, instead of keeping to her story of being asleep. "You want me to admit something, but I don't know what the Hell that is, so whatever I did, fine, this is me admitting to it." No it wasn't, and Bobbi could feel the frustration rising in her again, threatening to come out in a burst of angry words. "So get the stick out of your ass and decide if you want to play good cop or bad cop because the constant back and forth is getting real old, real quick."

When is too early for day drinking?

* * *

 

Turns out her avoidance of Skye was cut short because whilst Simmons was giving the hacker her physical - because Bobbi wasn't allowed to for obvious reasons - Coulson came out with a story about his doctor calling and feeling rusty, which Bobbi knew to be a lie because for all intents and purposes, he was in better shape than anyone on this plane. Including her!

For someone who had been dead for however long the real story was, and in recovery in Tahiti for nearly two years, Coulson appeared to have come back stronger than before with a healthy heart, an impressive deadlift, and stamina that she was sure would rival an Olympian. And he was holding a conversation with Skye as they ran in tandem on the treadmills. That Skye was able to hold a conversation as well made Simmons nod and smile and mark it down on her tablet.

Morse checked her stopwatch when Coulson started panting more, and marked the time down on her own tablet, "okay, Sir, you can stop now." Coulson slowed to a walk before getting off, patting at the sweat with a nearby towel as he caught his breath. "Very impressive, whatever your Doctor thinks, you're in the best shape of your life." Simmons told Skye she could stop as well as Bobbi consolidated all of Coulsons results. "... well, afterlife." The man cracked a grin at that as she went over to take the electrodes off his chest.

"Good." He nodded, taking a gulp water before continuing. "And Morse," he waited for her to acknowledge before adding; "you don't need to put this one on my file." He waited until she nodded before pulling his shirt over his head.

Bobbi paused; not on file meant no-one had to know, he didn't want anyone to know. Including his Doctor, because his Doctor would get the report if she filed it, but he was telling her not to. "Yes, Sir." Because Hill said to keep her eyes and open, her mouth shut, and to do what she was told. And right now she was told not to file the results.

Coulson was out of the room before either of them could say anything else, before Skye had finished slowing down the treadmill, even. Simmons was a hummer, Morse mused, as the Englishwoman completed her input. "So, what's the damage, Doc?" Skye was still panting, still glistening with sweat, as she came over to peer over Simmons' shoulder.

"No damage at all." Simmons announced brightly, "you, Skye, are impeccably healthy." Skye leaned against a desk and took three gulps of water in quick succession, drawing Bobbi's eyes to the heaving of her chest, and the sheen of sweat on her skin. "You've gained a pound of muscle, you just ran five miles, and with just a few more weeks of nutritional supplements, you should have put your malnutrition in the past." Skye grinned and Simmons smiled back at the girl. "Agent Morse-" the blonde snapped her eyes to the biochemist. "-you are officially clear to begin self defence and offence training."

"Woohoo." Skye was the one to respond in a monotone. "Can I go now, or do you need to poke and prod me some more?"

Simmons was already wondering off in a distracted state, finalising the report before sending it off and heading towards where Fitz was tinkering in the lab, leaving Skye and Bobbi alone. "Still got that stick?" Skye crossed her arms, eyeing her.

The loudspeaker crackled to life before she could respond. "All personnel to the briefing room." Coulson announced, Bobbi let out a breath, long and slow.  
"Saved by the bell." Skye muttered, following after the blonde.

Bobbi stops just outside the briefing room, and holds Skye with her, her fingers tingling at the contact. "I'm-" she had never been good with her feelings, Izzy always said she was 'an emotionally stunted, over-compensating-by-overachieving, wreck'. Lance had been the feelings one in their relationship, he had also been the first one to run after a fight, but that was beside the point. "I'm pissed about a lot of things right now, but..." Skye denying the Bond, Lydon, know there was something she didn't know going on in the Bus, and Skye denying the Bond. Amongst other things. "It won't affect your training, okay?" Skye searched her for a moment and Bobbi wasn't sure what for, but she must have found it.

"Don't want to be late." The brunette muttered, brushing past her.

* * *

 

Bobbi could feel the static in the air as they approached the crime scene. Her hair could feel the static too, trying to rise from her head, but only really succeeding in making a few stray hairs in her ponytail lift. Then she saw the body-

"Holy shit!" Skye stumbled into her back and swore when the blonde found herself stopped right in front of her shadow, staring at the body.

The body that was floating in mid air.

Holy shit was right!

She could feel Skye moving from behind her, "no way! That is so cool!" Coulson pointedly cleared his throat at that. A man was dead. "I mean, not cool that he's dead, but are you seriously telling me this isn't freaky?"

"Why do you think S.H.I.E.L.D is here?" Coulson shook his head, turning to debrief a local L.E.O.

Bobbi had to admit that this wasn't something she would have seen if she had gone into any other profession. Still, when Skye reached out to touch the body, her hand already half raised as Simmons did the same on the opposite side, she knew it was a good idea. "Don't touch it!" She was close enough to slap Skye's hand away, but not Simmons'.

It happened quickly; the body dropped to the ground, Simmons jumped back with a gasp and a shake of her static-shocked hand, and Skye turned away from the scene and straight into the blondes chest. The static in the air was abruptly gone, and Simmons went about business as usual as she examined the now dormant body. Skye quickly stepped away from Bobbi again, muttering a quiet 'sorry' before heading over to where Fitz was using the D.W.A.R.F.S to scan the car battery that was definitely not in the car.

Simmons was examining the body, Fitz was frowning and poking at the D.W.A.R.F.S control pad, and Skye had come back to her to 'shadow' her S.O. "Clearly a targeted attack since no-one else was hurt, didn't care about leaving a troop of Boy Scouts as witnesses, and for all intents and purposes the victim was a model citizen-volunteer firefighter, troop master, family man..." Coulson told them when he was finished talking with the officer.

"Model citizen with at least one enemy." Bobbi muttered, furrowing her brows. "Weren't the other victims firefighters too?"

"So we have a connection." Coulson nodded, turning his attention to Skye. "When we get back to the Bus, look into that, see what they worked on together, and who is after them with the ability to do this."

"Pretty sure the list of people that can do this, is a short one." Skye gestured to the scene with a scoff.

Coulson shot her one of his bland smiles. "You'd be surprised."

Bobbi ended up circling the scene for the next two hours, making notes to Skye as she followed half a step behind. Notes like the lack of blood at the scene, the disturbances in the trees high above them, the lack of wildlife in the are meaning that they'd been scared off. "Keep your eyes open, the big, obvious things, anyone can see, but you need to look at the details, see what even the L.E.O's and Feds would miss." Just because Bobbi was both ready to kiss Skye, and kill her, didn't mean she was going to waste a teachable moment. "What do you see?"

Brown eyes flickered about, darting around the scene like a caffeinated squirrel. "Your eyes narrow every time one of the officers over there moves." Not exactly what Bobbi had been expecting. "And you keep checking to make sure Fitz and Simmons are okay, Simmons more than Fitz, though, and I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's because she got zapped by the flying dead guy. Then, you'll look over to Coulson and you get this little crinkle between your eyes-" a finger reached up and on instinct the blondes eyes closed when it reach her forehead. "-right here." Her touch is warm, and gone far too quickly. "You don't look to where May is 'cause you know she can take care of herself. You always make sure that wherever the non-Shield people are, you're between them and me, even though you're pissed at me for no reason. And you tried to stop both Simmons and I from touching the body when it was in the air, but you chose to stop me instead of Simmons when you could have reached either one-or even both-of us."

That was a lot of observations.

A lot of observations about her.

"Am I wrong?" The smug tone and quirk of her eyebrows meant Skye knew that she wasn't wrong on any of what she said, but just wanted to confirmation.

* * *

 

It's small things at first, easily unnoticeable. Things like a static shock, or a spark when handling the scanner to check the body. Bobbi keeps ignoring it, though, because a static shock or a spark from a device isn't important when there's a growing number of deaths with floating bodies.

Except it's not exactly a static shock, and it's not a malfunctioning scanner, and the reach of Loki of Asgard's villainous rampage across the globe two years ago is still hurting people - killing people - today. People like well-meaning volunteer firefighters. The Chitauri are still attacking, their weapons now, though, are unintentional on their part, but deadly none-the-less.

It takes them too long to figure out that it's not an alien weapon, or someone intentionally targeting the dead men. It's much worse. It's something they have no defence or precaution against.

An alien virus.

Blue eyes watch in horror as a pen passes between Jemma and Skye with a bright spark that makes them both flinch back from each other.

* * *

 

Simmons and Skye are quarantined separate from each other.

Simmons is at least a day more infected than Skye, and she's locked in the lab with white mice set for death. Fitz paces outside the glass doors, nearly as On edge as his English partner.

According to everything they learned, Skye should begin showing symptoms any time from an hour ago. All Bobbi is allowed to do is watch through a security camera as the girl sits in the holding cell, arms around her knees and looking so much younger than she is.

For the first time since meeting her, Bobbi can see a scared child being rejected time and again, being sent back to whatever orphanage the state deemed appropriate this time, hoping for love and being kicked down and spurned instead.

May slips into the seat next to the blonde, placing a cup of coffee in front of her to go along with her own tea. "I should be in there with her." The words tumble from her lips more broken than vehement.

"Which her?" May quirks an eyebrow, eyes flitting to the camera overlooking the lab. Bobbi can't answer that because she doesn't know the answer. She'd be useless to Skye, nothing more than someone else to possible become infected. She could help Simmons in creating an anti-serum, but at the same time she would just be in the way and at risk of infection. Simmons would work better alone instead of having her hover at her shoulder while she worked.

Bobbi sipped at her coffee, but couldn't bring herself to revel in the bitterness. Not when Skye and Jemma were in danger. "I could at least help. I have the exact same degree in biology that Simmons has. I may not be as smart, or have spent the last ten years in a lab like she has, but at least I'd be doing something." The blonde ranted, doing anything would be better than sitting and waiting.

"Another person in the lab, is another person at risk." May pointed out, "and Simmons has pretty good motivation to work quickly."

"And I don't?" Bobbi scoffed, no motivation at all. Just her Soulmates life. Before either of them can say anything, an alarm goes off and they're both on their feet, watching through the cameras as Fitz takes the Chitauri helmet and breaks into Simmons' quarantine. They're both too far away to stop him, and too late to extract him.

Coulson tries though.

* * *

 

Skye is in the holding cell, alone and uninformed, waiting to find out if Simmons made an anti-serum or if she's going to die.

Of all the ways she thought she'd die, a space cold hadn't been on the list.

The last mouse is floating it's cage, Fitz is unconscious on the floor, and Simmons is being pulled out of the open cargo hold.

Bobbi jumps.

Bobbi jumps because the anti-serum worked and the last mouse is alive. Bobbi jumps because Jemma isn't going to die. Bobbi jumps because Skye is alone in the holding cell waiting to find out if she's going to die.

Bobbi jumps.

Finding Simmons through the wind stinging her eyes and the speed they were travelling, and the freezing air seeping into her bones isn't easy. But, as with Simmons and the anti-serum, she has good motivation, and despite the fumbling and near miss of letting the English woman go, she manages to hold on and pull the chute before it's too late.

Treading water in the middle of the ocean with a distrust scientist, Bobbi manages to jab the injector into Jemma's neck and push down. "The anti-serum worked."

"Oh." Simmons gasps, letting out a breathless laugh. "Well, I suppose my reaction was rather premature then."

* * *

 

It's a long wait in the icy sea as May redirects the Bus to come pick them up.

When they're back on the Bus, Bobbi catches Simmons looking wistfully out the window as she's swaddles in blankets and yelled at by first Coulson and then Fitz.

Bobbi doesn't even get changed, or so much as grab a blanket before heading to see Skye. Skye, who Fitz had already given the anti-serum, Skye who is sitting in her bunk hugging her knees with shiny eyes, Skye who she knows she was little more than a day away from losing forever.

Skye, who despite Simmons presenting symptoms - though they initially ignored them - after one two hours, had never shown any symptoms

Bobbi ignores that piece of information in favour of grabbing the strongest alcohol she can find and heading to the bunk next to her own. "Hey." Brown eyes peak up at her, standing in the doorframe.

"Hey." Skye mimics, "after several weeks and multiple opportunities of experience, I realised something." It piques Bobbi's interest to say the least.

"What?" She twists the cap off the bottle and passes it to the brunette.

"Almost dying isn't fun." The revelation is followed by a mouthful of alcohol and the blonde is more than a little disappointed that it wasn't the admission she was hoping for, but she covers it with a laugh and swallows it with alcohol.

"No." Bobbi agrees, "it's not."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What exactly is so special about this kid that's got Fury hooked?" Tori was the one to ask the question, "she Fury's lovechild or something?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!!!! Can you believe two updates in 1 week 

Space colds are no laughing matter.

It's an alien virus, originating with alien invaders who had alien biology and an alien immune system. It had killed every human it came into contact with until Simmons, and though her anti-serum helped to keep her alive, no-one knew if the virus would continue to affect Simmons and Skye at a slower pace, or if it had truly been eradicated from their bodies.

Which is why Coulson announced only a few hours after Morse and Simmons had been pulled from the ocean, that they would be stopping at the Hub during the night for refuelling, supplies, and for Simmons and Skye to be quarantined and examined.

They find this out after Jemma and Skye had already been let out of quarantine, and interacted with the whole team, which means that everyone on the Bus will have to be quarantined and cleared as well, to make sure they're not infected, or carrying the virus which could potentially infect innocent bystanders.

FitzSimmons distract themselves by cataloging samples of the virus, and their anti-serum, for inspection and analysis when they land. Coulson keeps himself in his office, grumbling about the amount of paperwork he'll have to do from this ordeal, Bobbi and Skye put their shared alcohol away after only a few mouthfuls each and The blonde stays to watch over her Soulmate as she curls up in her bed with her computer and a half finished code for what appears to be a tracer on Akela Amadors bionic eye. May flies the plane.

Bobbi takes the time to watch Skye and think; if Fitz and Simmons hadn't made an effective anti-serum Jemma would be dead by now, and Skye less than a day away from the same fate. Skye, her Soulmate, could have died alone in the holding cell. The woman in question lets out a kitten-like yawn and Bobbi blinks. Skye could have died! In the month and a half since she'd met her Soulmate, she had nearly lost her 4 times, and that was 4 too many in her opinion.

Skye eventually looks away from her computer screen, her fingers still darting across keys, "you going to watch me all night?" Her voice is soft and Bobbi knows she's exhausted, probably more emotionally than physically, but the effects are the same.

"Yes." The blonde answers simply, not yet willing to be away from her after seeing her locked alone in the holding cell, even though her own bunk is only on the other side of the wall.

"Weirdo." Skye mutters, finally pausing her code and eyeing her cautiously. "You still got that stick up your ass?" Was she still pissed about Miles Lydon? Yes. Was she unreasonably angry that Skye wouldn't even acknowledge the Bond? Definitely. Was she going to sit here and let her stupid feelings get the better of her after her Soulmates mortality was just made all too clear to her?

"No." Skye stared at her a moment longer after her answer before going back to her code with a shrug.

The brunette shuffled to side, pressing herself to the side of the bed against the wall by the window. "If you're gonna be creepy, at least get comfortable, you're make me uncomfortable just looking at you." The bed isn't built for two, but it doesn't bother either of them as Bobbi sits on the edge and kicks her feet up, her fingers unconsciously finding themselves tangling in soft brown hair and massaging Skye's scalp as she continues to code, letting out a soft hum at the feeling.

* * *

 

It's barely 3 in the morning when May lands on the airstrip at the Hub, and they're greeted by a team of 20 agents. They're told to leave all their belonging and to proceed directly to the med pod that had been loaded into the cargo hold next to Lola. Jemma and Leo look half asleep as they shuffle in, Coulson sighs when he's told he can't bring his paperwork and looks like he never went to sleep, May glares silently when two Sci-Tech agents try to separate FitzSimmons until they step away looking frightened, and Bobbi does let Skye out of her sight, not that it's difficult in the tiny med pod.

Once the pod is sealed and they're on their way to Medical, Bobbi looks at her team mates; Fitz and Simmons on matching flannelette pyjamas, Coulson still in his suit looking tired, May feircly protect of the little science babies and trying to hold herself together for them.

In quarantine in the Medical bay, it's not as easy to protect her team, though logically she knows she doesn't need to protect anyone in here. Simmons and Skye are immediately led to separate containment showers and given a set of sterile scrubs each before they would eventually be taken away for isolation and testing. Fitz, May, Coulson, and Bobbi were taken to a different set of showers, given their own scrubs of a different colour - to differentiate the infected and just exposed - and then to a group quarantine as they awaited blood tests and tissue samples. Bobbi couldn't even see Skye and Jemma from their quarantine into either of the younger womens' isolation chambers.

With only 7 hours left in their 24 hour quarantine, the four agents received a visitor. Well, three Agents came to see them, but Bobbi knew that was just Tori's flare for the dramatic, her need to always be flanked on either side. She thought it made her look imposing. In truth, it was a relief to see a friendly face other than her team.

"Coulson." The red streak in her hair stood out in the harsh light of Medical as she addressed their leader. "How is your team?" They'd all been provided beds, and the lights had been dimmed for a few hours so they could sleep, but none of them had slept much, if at all.

"Missing a third." Coulson replied, standing directly opposite Agent Hand with only the quarantine glass separating them, May and Bobbi flanking him much like Victoria's agents were behind her, and Fitz stand cautiously a little behind them. "How can we help you, Agent Hand,"

Hand purses her lips for a moment, eyeing them all. "A Chitauri virus has been infecting humans, and now an Agent, and left a team in quarantine in my base." No mention of Skye, but then Tori had always been against the idea of consultants, insisting that anything a consultant could do, an Agent could do better, that was what they trained them for after all. "The helmet has been logged, scrubbed, and is awaiting transport to the Sandbox. The virus has been catalogued and an effective vaccine is being developed as we speak. The serum your little scientist cooked up slowed the effects and kept your Agent alive, but they are still contagious and in danger."

Fitz inhaled sharply, the panic rising within him and he mumbled something about needing to sit down, but Bobbi didn't comprehend much. Danger. Contagious. Danger. Skye was still in danger, still infected.

Bobbi couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't function. Because Skye was still infected and they were only working on a vaccine, not that they had a vaccine. She felt like she was going to be sick. "Morse." May's voice cut through the haze just enough for her to focus on it. "Go sit with Fitz, Morse. He's needs it." Right. Go sit with Fitz and comfort him because he and Simmons were close, and sitting with Fitz under the guise of comforting him meant she could be away from the conversation as well. Because yes, Fitz and Simmons were known platonic Soulmates, and everyone knew it, but only May and Coulson knew Skye was hers.

Hand and Coulson kept talking, a report on the Bus its eradication, basic upkeep and supply information that would usually be delivered by email, or the lowest level Agent on base. Definitely not something the Director of the base would normally see to. Tori wanted something else. "The four of you should be cleared by morning, and allowed to leave. I have a sensitive two-man mission that I'll need one of your Agents for, since you'll all be on base for the foreseeable future." Tori's eyes surveyed each one of them, "briefing is at six." A turn on her heel and the clicking of her shoes on the concrete floor as she left, her flanking Agents following her dutifully.

* * *

 

They were woken at 3 in the morning to be let out of quarantine. Well, Bobbi hadn't been able to sleep since Skye had been zapped by Simmons, and she doubted Coulson or May slept much either with two of their own in danger, and Fitz had been tossing all night, but he'd at least gotten a couple of hours.

Briefing for Hand's mission would be in 3 hours, so she knew she should at least get an hour or two of sleep before that, but Jemma and Skye's isolation chambers were only a few rooms from their quarantine room. Simmons was sleeping in her chamber, an I.V attached to her arm, and electrodes sticking all over her to monitor her vitals. Skye was in the next room in a similar state, except she was wide awake, and noticed her through the window in her door immediately. Bobbi stepped through the fist door and stood in the sterilisation room.

"Hey." The blonde couldn't bring herself to smile.

"Hey." Skye copied, getting up from her bed and dragging the I.V pole over to the doorway. "They let you out, huh?" A flash of silver on the brunettes arm caught Bobbi's attention, but she dismissed it as something to come back to later. "Any idea when I'll be free?"

Surely they had been keeping Skye informed on her diagnosis, right? "Once they've got a vaccine and your tests come back positive."

She gulped, took a slow breath, and nodded. "Okay." Skye let out a shaky breath. "So You've been cleared, and I still need a vaccine, so I'm still infected." It was the only logical option.

"The one FitzSimmons made delayed the effects, but it's still in your system." Bobbi provided uselessly, Skye nodded again, another shaky breath rattling past her lips. "I bet you'll be cleared by the time I'm back from my mission." Because she was the only logical choice; Coulson was team leader, May was 'just the pilot', and Fitz - as much as she liked him - was a disaster in the field.

That caught Skye's attention. "You have a mission?" Her eyes had widened, she licked her lips. "When-when are you guys gonna be back?" Oh. She thought it was a team mission.

"Coulson, May and Fitz will be around, Hand said it was a two-person thing."

"Oh."

"Yeah, briefing is at six, so I guess I'll see you in a few days?" Not that Skye would be going anywhere, once she was free from the virus, she'd be in isolation for 24 hours to makes sure before she was allowed back with the team. "Anything you need? You should get some sleep."

Skye shrugged and turned away, taking a few steps towards her sterile bed. "I'd say my computer, but it'd be useless with this thing." Her hand was held up with the silver bracelet as she continued to her bed with tired steps. "Some Agent said it'd shut down any tech near me, couldn't even put the scanners on me with it going haywire." A nanny bracelet. Someone had put a nanny bracelet on Skye for no reason. They were the types of things reserved for high level criminals and cyber threats. There had been a time when the higher ups were worried they'd have to put one on Stark if he went too far. No-one wanted to label the son of one of their founders as a cyber threat to their agency. Luckily he knew his limits and was careful not to cross any unmarked lines.

"Who-" Bobbi faltered, there were only a handful of Agents on this relatively small base with the authorisation to issue one of those. "Who gave you that?" Don't say Tori, Bobbi silently pleaded.

"Stick up her ass with a red streak." Tori.

* * *

 

Bobbi was a force of anger as she stormed into the mission briefing half an hour early, no doubt Hand would be there early anyway, and she wasn't disappointed. "Take it off her." The blondes demanded, ignoring the underlings Tori kept around her.

"Agent Morse." Hand looked away from her tablet, looking mildly surprised. "I'm afraid I'll need a little more context than that."

Bobbi forced herself to take a calming breath. "Skye. The nanny bracelet. Take it off her." The who, the what, the demand. "She's a consultant, not a terrorist."

Hand finally gave her her full attention. "Agent Morse, you brought a hacker, a member of the Rising Tide to my base in the middle of a sensitive operation, and you expect me to trust her because Coulson picked up another stray?" A hollow laugh, everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D knew of Coulson's reputation for taking in any stray he came across and turning them into agents. "No. This is my base, and she's part of an organisation that has been known to compromise missions, for all we know, it could be her personally leaking the information, especially now that she has inside access."

Okay, technically she had admitted to leaking missions, and Coulson had picked her up because she was actively hacking S.H.I.E.L.D, and Bobbi had been making those exact same points to Coulson since the moment Skye stepped onto the bus, but... "Please, Tori." Skye was in isolation, alone, they didn't know when she'd be allowed out because they didn't know when a vaccine would be ready, and Bobbi couldn't just leave her in there alone and miserable. Not her Soulmate.

"Bobbi." Hand crossed her arms and stared her down. "Are you asking as an Agent and Supervising Officer, or is it personal?" Was this an official request, or was she there as Tori's girlfriends best friend? Was Tori the type to ignore the fact that she'd known Skye was her Soulmate for over a month and hadn't filed the paperwork? That Coulson and May hadn't filed a report either?

Bobbi searched her friends eyes for any hint of what would happen if she put the information out there. "She's my responsibility, Tori, I can handle her without the bracelet." Tori was too much of a company woman to overlook 'unfiled' paperwork.

"Then you can handle her with the bracelet, it doesn't leave her wrist until she's off my base." Agent Hand turned back to her tablet and a waiting Agent to continue talking about the mission.

* * *

 

Fitz was the one Hand had meant when she said she needed one of their people for the mission. Fitz and a specialist named Ward were going on a two-person find and disable mission in South Ossetia. Fitz who she'd seen arguing with a glitch in door that kept closing on him when he was taking something to Simmons' isolation chamber to give to the Englishwoman.

Ward didn't appear to happy with the revelation either.

Bobbi had wanted to argue, either she could go in Fitz's place - they needed an engineer, not a biologist - or Ward's, at least if she went Fitz she could make sure he was okay when he came back to Simmons, and she'd be doing something instead of sitting around waiting for Skye to be released. But Hand had looked stricken at the mention and denied her before she could even finish the request.

Which was why May found her an hour after the announcement, in the gym punching the shit out of a punching bag.

"Fitz is an Agent." May reminded, moving to brace the bag for her.

"Who failed the field physicals." Both him and Simmons, and now they'd been in the field a month and a half and Simmons was in isolation from an alien virus, and Fitz was going into hostile territory with no backup except Ward. "He knows less about the field than Skye, and isn't that a terrifying thought!"

May rolled her eyes, stepping away from the bag with a pointed look until Bobbi stepped back too. "Ward may be an ass, but he's a good Agent, Morse." A towel and a bottle of water were tossed her way, "trust the system, Morse, how can you teach it to the kid if you can't follow it yourself." Right. Well right now she couldn't teach Skye anything because Skye was infected by a space cold. "Put on your big girl panties, and tell Fitz he'll do great."

* * *

 

Jemma had promised Leo a specially made prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich with homemade pesto aioli - Fitz had raved about it for a full half hour - when she got out of isolation as a pride reward for going into the field without her.

For Fitz to receive his prized sandwich, three things needed to happen; 1, Jemma needed to come out of isolation alive; 2, Fitz needed to get through his mission alive; 3, Fitz and Ward needed an extraction plan for the mission.

Because there was no extraction plan. Hand had sent Fitz out on a one way mission.

Skye was getting another round of tests done, so Bobbi had decided to follow through on her promise to look into the younger woman's redacted file. Okay, so technically she was attempting to break into her own agency, but at least she felt like she was doing something. Except, once she got into the system using a stolen login of Tori's from a few years ago that she was honestly surprised still worked, the first files to come up were naturally the most recent mission that Tori was presiding over, including Fitz's Overkill mission in South Ossetia.

It was one thing not to let her go on the mission with Fitz, it was another to deny her very valid request to be part of the extraction team, it was an entirely other dimension of problems that there hadn't been any extraction team assigned.

Her first stop she went to check on Skye, then she went to May with her concerns, she wasn't going to tell Simmons that her partner went on a mission with no way back, then Bobbi and May went Coulson because if Coulson was on board then when Hand called them out on going against orders it would be Coulson against Hand and they were on equal Levels as opposed to May and her being underlings to the Level 8's.

"Do I want to know how you know this?" Coulson just looked resigned, as if it was only a matter of time before someone broke into S.H.I.E.L.D for classified information. Though he probably thought it would be Skye. Hell, Bobbi thought it was more likely to be Skye as well.

"Plausible deniability." May muttered with a smirk, Coulson sighed with a shake of his head.

"So you're telling me," he reached up to fix his slackened tie, getting back to business. "That we have two of our people in isolation from Space Sniffles, and now Fitz is on a one-way mission with Ward, and we don't even have a plane because ours still being quarantined." That did not sound like the make-up of a successful retrieval. "Give me some good news here."

"Who said we didn't have a plane." Thank God for May!

Not quite the giant Bus they'd been living in, but the quinnjet was more than enough for the three of them to stage an extraction. It was probably best not to ask May how she acquired a quinnjet on such short notice.

* * *

 

Barbara Morse was not a happy Agent.

"You sent Fitz in without an extraction plan, you put a nanny bracelet on Skye when she's in isolation; what the fuck is going on, Tori?" Bobbi was being loud, and angry, and Hand is her superior, but she doesn't care right now because They were barely on time to pick up Fitz and Ward, and Skye has been in isolation for two days without so much as an update on the search for a vaccine, and Tori is acting more shifty and untrusting than usual - which is saying something because it's Tori and Tori has never been the trusting type.

"What's going on, Morse," the words are accented by the clicking of boots on the tiled floor, "is you don't seem to understand 'mouth shut and follow orders'." Maria. Maria had come all the way to the Hub. Shit, was she getting another citation on her record? Worse, was she being transferred off the team?

"If following orders means one of my team dies, you bet your ass I'm not following orders." If it was Ward on his own she could understand, he was a solo Agent who could get himself out without an extraction plan, but not Fitz.

"You're a headache, Morse." Hill shook her head before turning to Hand. "Tell me you've got something strong to drink in your office."

Tori snorted, already turning on her heel and tossing over her shoulder; "it's like you don't even know me, Maria."

The walk to Tori's office was relatively short and entirely quiet, it added a certain feel of foreboding and suspense that Bobbi would normally appreciate. Once inside the door was locked and Maria demanded a lockdown which raised Tori's eyebrows but she complied none-the-less. Maria was a whiskey woman and she didn't speak until she'd had at least three fingers of amber liquid.

"Fitz should have had an extraction." Maria finally spoke, turning away from the bar in the corner. "You know why that team was made, Tori, Fitz should have had an extraction." She spoke rover Hand when she looked ready to protest. Why the team was made? Shit, this was bigger than Bobbi knew. "And, Morse, stop looking into that redacted file, its redacted for a reason." Because of course Maria knew that it was her trying to get back into the Level 8 system after they'd gotten back from picking up Fitz and Ward.

"That file is Skye." They'd find out eventually, better she tell them and hopefully they'll help her.

"Shit." The curse was accompanied by another three fingers of whiskey. "Fury's gonna be pissed." As opposed to his usual sunny demeanour. "He's spent years keeping that kid out of trouble, and now trouble went and picked her up off the streets. Anything else I need to know?"

Anything else like if the kid Fury - a director of freaking S.H.I.E.L.D - had apparently taken an interest in was someone's Soulmate? "Yeah." Bobbi went and poured herself a glass of whiskey as well. "She's my Soulmate." Because if Skye was important to Director Fury, then she couldn't keep it secret anymore. Fury didn't take an interest in regular orphans off the street.

"Fuck." Hill dropped into a chair and rubbed her temples.

"What exactly is so special about this kid that's got Fury hooked?" Tori was the one to ask the question, "she Fury's lovechild or something?"

Maria snorted as the three of them got comfortable, apparently it was going to be a long night, and hopefully at the end of it Bobbi would finally have some answers on why Skye didn't seem to want anything to do with the Bond. "Kid's an oh-eight-four."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yes, I was gone for 10 months, came back for a week and then left for two weeks... but!!! I was just having trouble finding Bobbi's anger point. In the show Ward had the whole Well thing, but I didn't know what Bobbi's would be, and that got me thinking on what Bobbi's 'Defining moment' was and I couldn't figure that out either so I was stuck and then I just figured screw it, and wrote Skye as Bobbi's anger and told myself I'd come back to her defining moment.

Hunan, dead Agents, baby, 084.

That's what Skye's case boiled down to; there had been a massacre in China, a report of an 084, teams of Agents went in to investigate and found a baby. All but 2 of the Agents died, and Those two brought the 084-baby back to the States and dropped her at an orphanage with a protocol saying she could never be adopted and to keep her moving.

Skye was the 084-baby.

Skye was Bobbi's Soulmate.

Maria finally gave her orders as night was ticking into morning. "Tori, don't file the Soulmate paperwork, and once she's cleared from isolation, get rid of everything we took for tests. Anything that could identify her stays out of the system, as far as Shield knows, she's a consulting hacker and that's it." Maria looked tired, sounded tired. "Morse, I want to punish you for not reporting your Soulmate, but it turned out to be the right thing, no matter how inconvenient it is. Your orders are the same; head down, eyes open, mouth shut... if you can manage that?"

"Screw you." Was Bobbi's eloquent reply.

"Not since the Academy." The Academy was fun, Bobbi mused. "It's not ideal that you're Marked to the kid, but we can't do anything about that, so just keep an eye on Coulson and keep training her. At least if she can defend herself she might live long enough for us to find out what she is." Suddenly her Soulmate ignoring their Bond wasn't her biggest problem. "If anything happens on that Bus-if anyone so much as yawns, you tell me, got it, Bob?" Maria didn't wait for her ascent though, and continued talking. "And for the love of God, can we go one week without everything going to shit?"

* * *

 

  
The answer was no.

It head taken a further 3 days before Skye and Simmons were released from isolation. One day for a suitable vaccine to be developed that actually kill the virus with no adverse affects to humans, and a further 2 days for mandatory containment after to make sure that they weren't contagious and that the vaccine had worked on them.

In those 3 days Thor had reappeared on Earth, Maria had re-Levelled Skye's file to Level 10 and said that if the girl kept digging it would earn her the nanny bracelet until she stopped. Bobbi had argued, but her complaints had been ignored.

By the time they're ready to leave the Hub, Skye has been scrubbed from S.H.I.E.L.D's database, May has been brought in on the new plan of action which is exactly the same as the old plan just with added Skye-watching. Bobbi doesn't question why they aren't talking to Coulson about the girl he himself brought onto the team.... well, she wants to, but Maria pointedly reminds her to keep her mouth shut and follow orders.

Hand is keeping the nanny bracelet on Skye as long as she can get away with it, and Hill is letting her because Skye not using technology means Skye can't try and hack the agency for her file. Bobbi is still trying to work out what she could possibly say to Skye to stop her from looking. And to top it all off, her frustration is starting to rise again about Skye blatantly ignoring the Bond.

Bobbi spends a lot of time in gym.

Fitz came to the gym on the first day, looking lost with Simmons still in Isolation, and she teaches him how to at least throw a punch without breaking his hand.

Coulson comes on the second day and gives her a patented Dad Talk about how Skye will be fine, he's disappointed by what she did, and she only focuses half on him.

May comes on the third day and tells her to get her act together.

Hill comes on the fourth day and orders her to get her act together.

Skye comes on the fifth day and says that Hill ordered Coulson to order May to train her instead of Bobbi.

Bobbi hits the punching bag (and maybe a wall) so hard that she breaks three fingers on the fifth day after Skye leaves and she wants to demand that Hill takes her orders back, but instead she takes her battered hand to her bunk on the plane and drowns her frustrations in tequila and vodka.

In the morning Coulson tells the team that they've been drafted as part of the mammoth group tasked with cleaning up Thor's destruction once he's off world again. Bobbi would argue, but it sounds like the kind of mind numbing task that she needs at that moment.

* * *

 

  
In England Fitz and Simmons are awed and fascinated and apprehensive as they pick through the wreckage for any salvageable technology or weaponry.

Coulson mostly moans about having to clean up, but Bobbi thinks it's more that Thor was on world and the Asgardian still thinks he's dead so he couldn't see him again.

May has to make sure Skye doesn't touch anything or contaminate anything, which results in Skye following Coulson around as he explains how the Norse myths tie into Thor and Asgard, and May following Skye to make sure she doesn't touch anything other than the tub she'd been given, and Bobbi following May because Coulson is just picking up random rubble and she doesn't want another Space Sniffles incident.

One thing is for sure, Skye is actually earning some brownie points with May if the little smirk on the older woman's face is anything to go by.

"I can't think of a single time anything alien in human hands ended well." Coulson comments, and Bobbi could agree; the Tesseract, the Chitauri helmet, neural transmitters... only bad things could happen when humans handled alien objects, including the time Nat drank too much after the Battle of New York and took one of the Chitauri flying bikes out for a spin and ended up doing crop circles for fun in an Idaho field. Fury hadn't been too happy about that from what she'd heard.

"Wouldn't mind getting my human hands on Thor." Her mind was brought back to Skye, "he's dreamy." Sure, she could admit to screwing around with Lydon, and say Thor was dreamy, but admit she had a Soulmate standing ten feet away? An impossible feat never to even be acknowledged, let alone attempted.

"Sure, he's handsome-" Coulson looked vaguely uncomfortable at the turn of conversation.

"No." May cut in with a smirk, "he's dreamy." The look Skye gave Coulson could only be described as a two year old being told they were right.

Fitz and Simmons are in charge of isolating the alien rubble from the human rubble, and they end up enlisting Bobbi to help because they need someone who actually understand their complicated colour-coding system to yell at the other Agents who try to put metals in the same category as what appears to biological samples, and if someone doesn't yell at the underlings Simmons might have a conniption.

* * *

  
The area the team had been assigned had taken 3 days less than any other team to catalogue and clean up, and Hill had nearly instructed them to stay and assist the other teams, but the international search for keywords relating to S.H.I.E.L.D jurisdiction had pinged at a National Park in Norway.

Norway. How fun, she'd never been to Norway before.

Coulson doesn't speak Norwegian, and the witness doesn't speak English ehich means Bobbi has to talk to the witness whilst May gets Simmons up the tree to scan the imprint. She doesn't hear what May says, but Simmons nods resolutely and starts to climb, rambling to herself as she inches higher.

After finishing her talk with the witness - an overly innocent and naive man who reminded her of a carton boy next door - Bobbi went to report to Coulson. "Blonde woman so angry she had cartoon steam coming out her nose, holding a silver stick with markings on it, accomplice was a white man in his thirties with a ponytail, facial hair and a chainsaw." She handed him the notes she'd written during the interview.

Coulson looked down to her notes, raised his eyebrows and silently handed them back. "So Bobbi has the power, and Clyde got it for her. Interesting dynamic." Damnit! She'd written her notes in Norwegian. "Fitz said whatever was in the tree was the same as Thor's hammer. Asgardian." Great, humans with something Asgardian. Maybe Coulson was right, humans shouldn't have alien toys. "Anything to help us find where they're hiding?"

Skye chose that moment to speak up through the Comms from the Bus where she'd been ordered to stay alongside Fitz. "Sir, I don't think they're hiding." A ping from her tablet preceded a video from the news.

A group of rioters in Oslo seemingly led by a blonde woman and a man, showing strength and power beyond abnormal human, burning cars, running civilians, a birds-eye shot of writing in flames. 'WE ARE GODS'.

"This, " Coulson sighed, his brows furrowed at the screen. "Is why humans can't have nice alien things."

* * *

 

  
An Asgardian stick broken into 3 pieces, and at least one of those pieces was in the hands of Jakob Nystrom and Petra Larsen, and a dozen of their Norse-Paganist hate group had injured 18 people so far, and an additional two that had been in critical condition before succumbing to their injuries. These people had 2 deaths to their names, and more to come if S.H.I.E.L.D didn't stop them.

Luckily Coulson apparently knew an expert on Asgardian mythology.

Eliot Randolph in Spain rubbed her the wrong way.

Bobbi didn't really think talking to a history professor required the entire team, but Coulson had said it would be a good teaching experience

It was worse than humans having alien weapons, it was a weapon from an alien army that invokes rage and strength in bearer. And Jakob and Petra had already found one piece.

Bobbi hated following orders!

Stupid orders like listening to Professor Randolph and going on a wild goose chase even though he was clearly sending them on the wrong path, and orders like going into a dark and creepy crypt with Skye in search of alien weaponry. Why Skye? Skye wasn't a trained Agent. What would she do if she came across something? What would she do if Nystrom and Larsen were there? What would she do if she found the weapon?

The thought made Bobbi sick to her stomach, but she shut her mouth and followed orders and watched Skye go down a separate tunnel.

She knew they shouldn't have trusted Randolph, was her first thought when she saw him in the tunnel holding another piece of the Berserker staff.

Bobbi couldn't remember anything else except white hot rage, burning through her veins.

Then Skye.

* * *

 

  
Angry!

Barbara Morse was angry.

Angry that Coulson had ordered her to the lab, angry that Simmons was asking her stupidly irrelevant questions, angry that she'd let Randolph get away. Angry that Randolph had let Nystrom and Larsen's hate group get away with another piece of the Berserker staff, angry that Skye was standing ten feet away and she still had even so much as mentioned being her Soulmate in three months.

Angry.

Simmons was asking questions.

Fitz was asking questions.

Skye was asking questions.

Bobbi just wanted to hear whatever bullshit story Randolph was spouting out now, and they wouldn't "SHU UP!" the lab fell silent to her raised voice as she hit at the control panel to turn the volume up

"Bobbi." Skye stepped between Bobbi and the screen showing Coulson and Randolph, blocking her view.

"Move." The blonde demanded.

"Bobbi, you need-"

"What?" The blonde turned attention to the younger woman. "What do I need Skye? Do I need to calm down?" Skye's eyes widened, fear. "Do I need to sit down and let those terrorist kill people?" A step towards Skye, a step back from Bobbi. "Do I need sit here and put up with this shit because that asshole is lying to us?" Fitz and Simmons were in the background of her mind, telling her to calm down, to stop advancing, to please please please stop. "Do I need to stand here and have my fucking Soulmate ignore me and just put a happy fucking smile on my face and pretend everything is okay when you're standing right fucking here." Skye's back was to the wall, Bobbi was still advancing, her breaths were short and harsh, and Skye was just staring at her. "Well? Is that what I need Skye? For you to fucking ignore me? Does it give you some kind of sick pleasure, or do you just not want a Shield Soulmate-?"

"What?" Skye's voice was soft, but Bobbi was not in the mood for soft or confused and any other shit right now.

"Stand down, Morse." She hadn't noticed May enter the room.

"What do you mean, why am I ignoring you?" Skye demanded, less soft now.

Bobbi glared, Skye knew exactly what she meant. "Don't pretend, Skye, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"

"NO I DON'T! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING BECAUSE YOU WONT FUCKING TALK-"

"YOU WANT TO TALK? HOW ABOUT WE TALK ABOUT YOU-" she was towering over Skye, her heart was racing, rage was burn hot in her veins.

"MORSE." No-one had ever heard May raise her voice before. It was enough to give her pause. "You need to stand down, Morse." May put a hand on her arm, Skye tried to slide past the wall and get away, "stand. D-"

Skye wasn't getting out of there until she'd gotten her God damned answer, Bobbi pushed her back, Skye let out a whimper when her back hit the wall again. "Just admit it, Skye." The words hissed past her teeth.

The brunette glared back, "admit what?"

"Admit it." Bobbi was close now, close enough to feel Skye's shape, short breaths against her face. "Just admit it." Was it a plea or a demand?

Bobbi felt stunned for a moment, the feeling against her lips little more than a featherlight pressure. She dizzy at the soft lips, finally, after months, touching her own. Hungry for the touch, the taste, the feel. Featherlight and gentle wasn't going to happen, Bobbi's lips were demanding, harsh and bruising; taking and taking and taking. Her arm was across Skye's chest, holding her in place as she finally took what she'd wanted so bad since the snarky little hacker said the words on her hip in LA.

There were teeth, and bruising touches, and biting, and Bobbi demanded more and more and more. There was fire and anger, and...

Skye moaned.

Skye moaned and Bobbi was kissing her, and Bobbi was pinning her to the wall, and Bobbi had pushed her there and hurt her and was kissing her, and she felt sick to her stomach as she pulled back to see Skye panting and a red impression of her arm already showing against her chest.

"Fuck."


	9. Chapter 9

Fitz and Simmons are staring at her mostly in fear, and just a little in shock. May is glaring, more in disapproval and disappointment than actual anger. Skye is just staring at her, eyes wide, lips red, chest heaving. Bobbi has a need deep in her bones to kiss her again.

"Skye." May is the one to speak, voice steady and controlled. "Come here." Bobbi wants to stop her, to demand that her Soulmate stay with her. She wants her answers, and she wants her Skye, and she wants her heart to stop racing a thousand beats a minute.

An actual growl rumbles low in her throats and Skye freezes as if she were a dog ready to attack.

"Skye." May repeats, not taking her eyes off the blonde. "Go to your bunk." Skye takes another step, Bobbi takes a step after her. "Morse." Blue eyes snap to May, "let the girl go." She hadn't noticed her hand gripping Skye's wrist until then, forcing her fingers to uncurl and reveal a red ring around the younger woman's hand. Skye takes another step, and this time Bobbi is held in place by the horror of the marks she's left on her Soulmate.

A mark on her chest, a mark on her wrist, a mark on her lips; where the fuck is her Mark on Skye?

Skye is gone before she can make more demands, and Bobbi growls again at the loss. "Morse." May catches her attention again. "Gym, now."

Sparring between Agents have three unspoken rules; the fight starts as soon as all participants are on the mats and if anyone is stupid enough to get on the mats mid-fight then they're in the fight too, all fighting styles and nothing is too dirty, fight to first blood or until someone taps out.

Bobbi is angry, her heart is racing, rage is burning in her blood, and May has just offered herself up as an outlet.

Bobbi isn't stupid, she knows what May is doing; getting her out of lab and away from FitzSimmons as well as the surveillance of Coulson interrogating Randolph, she sent Skye to her bunk to be as far away as possible, and she's isolating the damage Bobbi can do in her current state.

Bobbi is already in yoga pants and a sports bra from Simmons' probing, and already worked up enough that she does three aerials on the mat whilst waiting for May. May takes her time to throw her hair into a loser ponytail, toe her shoes off, and do a quick stretch before carefully stepping onto the blue workout mats. As soon as her second foot touches the mat, Bobbi lunges.

Bobbi's fingers are still very broken from being told that she wasn't Skye's S.O anymore, and her head is throbbing from when she passed out after finding Randolph, and she knows that whatever that staff was, it's affecting her on an adrenal level if nothing else. But all that matters in that moment is that May is in front of her offering to be her outlet so punches and kicks and dodges and keeps punching and punching, and taking hit after hit, until she draws first blood from a cut on Mays lip.

Then she's on her knees on the mats and her body is heaving with violent, angry, frustrated sobs that she can't stop.

Because Lance left her, because the one person who is supposed to love her doesn't give a shit, because she gives everything to S.H.I.E.L.D and it's never enough, because her parents never should have been in New York if it weren't for her, because her brother blames her and she blames herself too. Because how many times is she meant to ignored by her Soulmate before she loses her mind, because, because, because, because…

May is keeping her mostly upright, and her sobs are nearly loud enough to block out the buzzing in her ears and fire in her blood.

Almost.

* * *

 

Bobbi picks herself up, showers, puts on her big girl panties and goes to Coulson to take herself off the case until she can get herself under control.

It doesn't go exactly to plan and Bobbi finds herself in the interrogation room with Randolph, a knife tucked into her waistband, and Coulson's theory that Randolph's knowledge of Norse myth is more than he learned from books.

The man at the table is unassuming, looking more bored than anything as he recites lines about Coulson and not knowing anything.

If Coulson is right the knife in her waistband will bend to the mans skin, if he's wrong… Bobbi won't hurt him too badly.

Bobbi circles the table, checks that the door is closed, eyes the handcuffs on the professor. "Are you going to keep lying, or are we going to have force the truth out of you?" The knife clangs on the metal table, Randolph eyes first the blade, then Bobbi, then the door. A sigh.

"I don't-" the metal slices through the air before he can finish. Bobbi's muscles flex in anger, the metal groans as its bent, and Randolph lets out another sigh.

"Wanna try that again?" The door opens and Coulson doesn't look the least bit surprised.

The story Randolph spins is a fanciful one full of a mason who joined an army out of boredom and left it for the butterflies and unicorns of Earth. Bobbi only half listens, instead watching for signs of lies or half truths, or anything else they may need to get the third piece of the staff and reclaim the other two. Power and rage go hand in hand with the Berserker army and their weapons, and Randolph preferred the peaceful life on Earth. Bobbi touched a third of the staff for only a few seconds and the effects haven't left her even hours later, willingly taking that; the darkness and destruction, even in double the strength she had it, Bobbi knew they were seriously out of their minds to seek it out. And that would make the fight to get the pieces of the staff back even harder because they would be stronger, angrier, and clearly insane.

Ireland

A church in Ireland.

Bobbi catches sight of Skye disembarking from the Bus as they're heading to get the last piece of the staff and Randolph isn't far behind. "The effects." Her grip on his arm is tight, but she knows he could break it. "How long do they last?" Hours at least, days is a probability. Anything more than that and she'll be a walking liability to the entire Agency.

"The strength wears off eventually." Eventually wasn't a time frame. "You will feel exhausted afterwards, you will need sleep, probably best to keep away from anyone you're fond of-"

"How. Long?" She grabbed him with her broken fingers, and they're throbbing painfully, but she ignores it.

"The strength?" Randolph shrugs, brushing her hand off his arm. "Hard to say with humans, you're all so fragile; maybe a few weeks, a few months, who knows." Weeks. Months. Maybe. "The rage, that dark nasty ache in the pit of your stomach; it's worse on humans, but…" a raise if his eyebrows, another shrug, a slight frown as he thinks about it. "Give it a few decades and it should wear off too."

Decades.

* * *

 

The monastery is dark, lit only by a few candles, and covered with dust. Clearly someone still came there to light the candles, but not many people observed there in recent years. The monastery is quiet. It could be Bobbi's paranoia, but it feels too quiet.

The piece of alien metal sticking out of Randolph is right there, and so is Nystrom. Right there. With the strength and rage and darkness and insanity of the Berserker staff coursing through his veins, and ready to fight.

Bobbi's fingers wrap around the alien metal covered in alien blood, and it lights up red in response.

Skye, Hunter, Skye, her parents, Skye, Ben.

Fighting Nystrom is purely on anger, none of her training is put to use at all.

Hunter left her. Rage filled her veins.

Her parents had been in New York when the Chitauri attacked to visit her. Woods splintered and broke.

Ben never forgave her, and hated her for their parents. Footsteps in the back of her mind.

"Bobbi." Skye. Her Mark hummed in response to the voice, but it wasn't enough to drown out the darkness.

"Skye, get back here." May wasn't far behind, but the other footsteps were getting closer too. Where Nystrom was, the others would be as well.

"Bobbi," Skye wasn't backing down. "Drop the staff." Steps closer, a lower voice, brown eyes peaking up at her. "This isn't you."

May grabbed Skye from behind, "Get her back." Bobbi ordered; Skye. She could protect Skye. If it from herself, then at least from these psychopaths.

The second piece of the staff lit up in red as May dragged Skye away. Two pieces, if possible, felt even worse than holding one. The first one goes down with barely a fight. The second. The third.

There's at least ten of them of.

Her mind flashes with her parents, with Ben, fighting with Hunter, Skye, Skye, Skye…

they're all either dead or unconscious and the scary part is that Bobbi can't remember. Pieces of the staff clang to the stone floor as she falls to her knees, and she's fully aware of Skye running to her side, but S.H.I.E.L.D has taken everything from her, and it's not about to stop taking now.

Petra.

Bobbi reaches for the pieces again, a hand grabs her arm. "Let me help." Bobbi has heard rumours about Bahrain -she takes them all with a grain of salt - she's also heard stories about May before, and she's seen May after. Mays demons, whatever they, probably haunt her without Asgardian help. Bobbi couldn't let anyone else take what she's feeling, no matter how much she wants to.

Her hand falters for a moment. Just a moment. And then she reaches for the staff again.

Petra drops her piece of the staff after only a few hits, but she knows it's not enough to stop her. The pieces of the staff are drawn to each other like magnets, sealing back together as they fall into place and the staff glows a bright red in her hands before fading back.

Petra stands, the staff feels alive under her fingertips, the back of her mind registers May keeping Skye back. "I am not afraid of you." The words barely leave Petra's lips before Bobbi swings, the staff thunks against bone and Petra flies back, hits a wall and crumples.

The staff feels magnetised to her hands as she drops to the stone floor. Her fingers won't uncurl from it, and then she feels hands on top of her own. Her fingers open to Skye's touch and the staff drops to the ground

* * *

 

Bobbi is at the bar when Skye finds her, and Skye is number 1 out of the 4 people she doesn't want to see right now. "Hey." She's also number 1 out of the people she does want to see. Bobbi looks up from her drink, in this lighting Skye is glowing, she looks back to her scotch. "I could get used to turndown service and little mints on my pillow." A smirk pulls at her lips.

"Overnights aren't a standard." The scotch burns it's way down her throat.

"Kinda figured, I've been here, like, three months, and the closest I've been to turndown is quarantine." It's said with half a smile, but Bobbi can't help but think that this is the first time, or at least only one of a handful of times in Skye's life that she's had little mints on her pillow. "How're you feeling?"

"Not great." It's an understatement, but it's the best she's going to feel in a long time. Decades according to Randolph. Skye shifts on her barstool and the light shifts with her, catching the long bruise visible at the neckline of her shirt. "I'm sorry." The words tumble out as she stairs at the mark she left. "For-" she can't even bring herself to say it, "-before, for hurting you, for-" for taking from her without consent. "I-"

"You save lives, I can handle a little rage." Skye shrugs, but the light isn't in her eyes. "No harm no foul." Yes harm, yes foul.

"Does everything just roll off your back?" She's sure Skye must have at least grazed the staff when she was making her let it go. How could she not be affected at all?

"If it helped, I'd rage all the time, but I learned pretty early that it doesn't." Another shrug, light fingers tearing at a napkin, the first hint of justified anger at the world for the hand she'd been dealt in life. "So you gotta choose what to hold onto." A hand swiped out stole her scotch, taking a sip.

"How can I choose when it's all just. Right. There." An earnest question, the darkness is still there, the rage, and fire… she's broken three scotch glasses so far on accident just from holding the, too tightly.

"Well," Skye slides her scotch back in front of her. "What's the closest right now?"

"You." The word was out without a thought and Skye sucked in a harsh breath. "Why won't you admit we're Soulmates?" There. She finally said it. It was finally out loud and real and there were no take backsies. "Why are you ignoring me? Why is our Bond so easy for you to push away like I mean nothing to you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mwa ha ha ha
> 
> Also, sorry it was a month, life sucks :(


	10. Chapter 10

“Wow.” Skye muttered, stealing Bobbi's scotch for the second time, before the blonde can even take a drink. “I'm gonna pretend it's the staff talking right now because that's a really asshole thing to say.” Bobbi's scotch is gone, and Skye's eyes hold no light, and Bobbi can feel her anger rising.

“Excuse me?!” Skye is already off her stool and heading for the door, but Bobbi finally said it out loud with no take backsies and she's not letting her walk away without an answer. “I've been waiting for three months for you to actually admit that we're Soulmates and your reaction is to call me an asshole?” Her heart is thumping and her nails are digging into the palms of her hands. “What is it? You don't want an Agent? You're too good for me? You don't want a woman? Why the fuck-?” The questions are pouring out, her volume rising with each one, and Skye is backed against the wall in the hallway. Bobbi wants to punch something, wants to rip her own hair out, wants to scream and yell and destroy everything in sight, wants to kiss Skye again…

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Skye snaps, darks eyes angry and hurt and glaring back at her. “You get kicks out of mocking me or something? You think this is some sick fucking joke? Or are you really just this much of an asshole?”

Her brain is screaming at her to stop, to calm down, to talk to Skye and get her answers without yelling, but her brain isn't in control. The staff is. “I'm not the asshole who won't even acknowledge her fuck Soulmate, Skye. I'm the one waiting here for you to actually give a fuck. You're the one playing the sick games and acting like I'm nothing to you. Do you really hate me enough to deny that we're Marked to-“

“Shut up!” Skye's fists are clenched, her eyes are glistening, and her cheeks are flushed with anger and hurt.

Bobbi isn't backing down. “No. We’re Marked, Skye, I have your words on me. Your stupid words that you said to me, in your stupid handwriting, the same colour as your Goddamn eyes. You. Are. My. Soulm-“

“I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING SOUL MARK!” The words are screamed out and it's enough to make Bobbi freeze. The tear tracks on Skye's cheeks stand out as she brushes past and a door slams seconds later, but Bobbi can't move.

Can't move. Can't think. Can't breathe.

The words echo in her brain, and Bobbi is left standing in the hallway, staring at the wall Skye had previously been standing against. It's enough of a shock to her system that the darkness inside her simmers down, and all she can do is stand in the hall and stare at the wall.

It could have been a minute or an hour or an entire decade, but Bobbi doesn't move until her phone buzzes. Maria. Bobbi ignores it and numbly walks to her room; the bed is turned down with a little mint on her pillow, the light feels too bright, the air feels suffocating, her clothes are too rough on her skin, everything sounds too loud. Her phone rings again and it's told loud, hurting her ears; Maria. Bobbi felt sick to her stomach, and she nearly didn't make it to the bathroom before she threw up. Her phone started ringing again; Maria.

A banging on the door that rattles in her skull, and Bobbi vomits again, a chill starting to creep through her bones. “Morse, I'm coming in.” May called, Bobbi couldn't bring herself to respond, or move, or feel, or think.

The numbness is fading to a cold chill that is settling in her bones and her heart. Her eyes are open, but she can't see anything as May picks her up and puts her in bed. Her clothes are scratchy, the sheets feel like ice and lead at the same time, the lights switch off and even the darkness is too bright, and the white hot rage is creeping back in to battle with icy cold shock.

* * *

 

  
Bobbi doesn't sleep at night.

When her mind finally catches up with Skye's words it's hours later and she's halfway to the younger woman's room before May stops her. But, she's not in the mood for May or going to bed or anything except answers from Skye because she had to be lying.

She had to be lying.

Because the other option is that she wasn't her Soulmate and Bobbi knew with absolute certainty that she was her Soulmates. From the words to the handwriting to the colour of her eyes to the tingle in her mark every time they touched.

May’s Room is the exact same as hers; the light are just as painfully bright, the silence is exactly as blaringly loud. “Sit.” May gestures to one of the chairs at the tiny coffee table. Bobbi obeys, if only because her only other option at that point is to go back to her room. “Talk.” A coffee mug thunks on the table in front of her, and May sits opposite with a cup of tea.

“Got anything else?” Coffee is not nearly strong enough for any conversation she's going to have right now.

May eyes her, dark eyes scanning her. “No.” Bobbi opens her mouth to argue, her anger rising at the simple denial. “You don't need to drown yourself; talk.”

The coffee is bitter and tastes like shit and burns her tongue and throat. “About what?” Really, is it Skye, the Bessemer staff, Skye, that she can't seem to control her own emotions, strength, or mind, Skye, or the fact that she'll apparently feel like for decades?

“Whatever you want.”

“Hill is gonna be pissed I ignored her calls.” The first thing that comes to mind that doesn't relate to Skye. “Probably put another note on my file just to spite me…”

Bobbi talks about absolutely nothing, and May listens and Bobbi tries not to blink too much because every time she closes her eyes she sees the anger and hurt in Skye's eyes, and every time it gets too quiet her ears ring with the last words she said to her. Bobbi doesn't stop talking until May’s phone buzzes and she announces that they have a mission.

“Go shower.” The older woman orders, “you look like shit.”

The water scalds her skin to a bright red, but it's not enough to warm her, and even that starts to make her angry. The shower not being hot enough makes her want to rip someone's throat out. Bobbi punches the wall in frustration until she hears a crack and pain blossoms through her fingers. That's another finger broken… and a dent in the wall. Oops.

On the Bus, Bobbi half listens as Coulson briefs them on a possible telekinetic who may or may not be responsible for a factory explosion. Simmons reprimands her at the same time for breaking her fingers, and then breaking another finger without having the first breaks checked, and fighting with an injury, and, and, and, and… and Bobbi stopped listening after the first few minutes.

May is excused to set the autopilot and the to sleep, Coulson goes to his office to finish paperwork on the Berserker staff and Elliott Randolph, Fitz and Simmons immediately scatter to the lab, and Bobbi finally felt exhausted enough that she might sleep.

Except Bobbi's bunk was right next to Skye's, and the younger woman was headed to her bunk from the opposite direction. Skye froze, Bobbi froze, Skye looked away, Bobbi growled. Skye let out a surprised sound when her back is pressed to the wall, and another hand is gripping her wrist far too tightly for it to be comfortable. Bobbi stares at her, the girl is her Soulmate, she knows it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Come to mock me some more?” Skye's words are harsh, but her voice is resigned. “Because, just so you know, you're gonna have be really creative because I've heard all the Soulless freaks comments before.”

Bobbi looks around the hall for a second before opening her bunk. “In.” Skye goes silently an as soon as they're both inside Bobbi locks the door. “Do you feel anything?” Anything at all? Her fingers graze Skye's cheek and her Mark tingles at the faintest touch. “Don’t you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Dark eyes glare at her. “I feel a whole lot, and most of it is the fact that not only did my parents not want me, but no-one ever will.”

Bobbi growls and brings Skye's hand to her hip. Her Mark sings when she lowers the waistband of her pants and Skye's fingers touch her words. Her eyes nearly roll back in her head it's the best thing she's felt in months, the calm and the contentedness is enough to drown out the persistent dark anger the Berserker staff forced upon her. “That's your words.” Her chest doesn't feel as tight, and the tension around her heart is loosened enough that Bobbi feels like she can breathe. “That's what you said to me. That's the Mark that means you are my Soulmate. That's-“

“That's a fucking sick joke, Morse.” The darkness invades her system again with the force of a freight train, hitting her worse than when she was actually holding the staff, when Skye rips her hand away and glares at her. Skye is out of her bunk before Bobbi can protest and it takes all of her willpower. It to punch something and break more fingers. Simmons would be pissed if she was back in the lab less than half an hour after she left with more injuries.

* * *

 

  
Bobbi knew it was going to be a bad mission when the Welcome Wagon ended with May sedating the asset.

Bobbi knew it was a bad day when Hill called and spent an hour yelling at her about the Berserker incident and why can't she just follow a simple God damned order?

Bobbi knew it was going to be a bad week when Skye wouldn't even be in the same room as her for anything other team meetings.

Bobbi knew it was more than just her new Berserker rage when only a few hours after the end of one mission, they got a call for another.

Bobbi hates that she wanted to punch Fitz for his little failed pranks on Skye, she hates that Simmons talking too much makes her want to kill someone, she hates that Coulson singing while he cooks grates on her nerves, she hates that May kicks her out of the gym every morning - because she doesn't sleep much anymore so that's where she spends most of her time - to work on Skye's physical training. Mostly Bobbi hates that Skye seems to hate her now, and it's obvious that there's a division in the team with her on one side and Skye on the other.

The strength from the Berserker staff doesn't wear off in hours or even days, or even a week, and Bobbi gets angry and frustrated when she accidentally breaks the punching bag more than once, or when a coffee cup smashes in her hands.

The Centipede soldiers that seem to be in cahoots with Edison Po at least look like they'd be a good outlet for some of her pent up strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, you all said you wanted Skye's reaction...
> 
> Also, I've been looking it up (for all of five minutes) and Captain American can sustainably lift around 800 pounds (350+ kgs) or 3000 pounds (1360 kgs) in special circumstances, and Lady Sif, an Asgardian warrior who if she were human I think would be the same or possibly bellow Bobbi, around 25 tonnes, and Mike Peterson isn't as good as Steve Rogers (yet) so I'm putting him at a sustainable 500 pounds (220+ kgs) and 1500 pounds (680 kgs) in special circumstances.  
> If we put Bobbi at even half of Lady Sif thanks to the Berserker staff, even though it will wear off over time (we don't know how much time) that would mean Bobbi could lift 12.5 tonnes making her way stronger than Captain America and isn't that amazing? :-O


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who has two thumbs and excellent time management skills?...
> 
> Really, who? Not me, could not be any further from me cause I've had this 95% finished for over a month and it still took me this long.

The Special Operations Academy is exactly as Bobbi remembers with white walls, distant sounds of sparring always in the air, the stench of sweat, and way too much testosterone for her tastes. Izzy had once likened the Academy to women working ten times as hard to thought of as half as good as a man, so naturally Maria was deputy director, Tori had her own base, Izzy was the head of a strike team, Sharon was Captain freaking America's bodyguard, and Bobbi had a call sign and was one of the top three Agents shortlisted for the Avengers Initiative. Male dominance could kiss their asses.

Recruits on the field were running drills, the sun was glaring at her and she was glaring right back at it as if she could have any affect, and the main focus on the field was a large construction machine being pushed across the field.

Now that would be a good test of her newfound strength.

Coulson had brought her to recruit Mike Peterson just to get her off the Bus, but at least on the Bus Skye was in close proximity and it had somewhat of a calming effect on her Mark no matter how much Skye was pissed at her or insisted they weren't Soulmates. Out here, the rage felt overwhelming, and her strength was uncontrollable, she'd broken the handle off the SUV from gripping it too tight.

Mike Peterson looks like a whole new man, and he's more than willing to help them fight the Centipede Soldiers, not that Bobbi thinks she'd need help, but she's not saying anything because she can't stand the thought of another lecture about following orders and keeping her mouth shut from Maria.

"You do that?" Bobbi gestures to the giant machine, and it's obvious he did, because they just witnessed it.

"Yeah." Mike looks proud, but Bobbi remembers when he kidnapped her Soulmate and she's not quite ready to forgive that.

"Sustained strength or short bursts?" Bobbi walks over, it's got a tackle dummy on the front.

"I can sustain about five hundred pounds for over two hours, working on upping it. Short bursts, I can do fifteen hundred pounds." Impressive. And Mike knows it too, if the whole S.H.I.E.L.D thing didn't work out he'd be a good Olympic weightlifter… then again, the Centipede serum continuously filtered through his blood would probably be seen as performance enhancing drugs…

Bobbi's been reading up on Asgardians when her newfound anger gives her the patience, that factored in with tests at the Fridge on Petra Larsen and Jakob Nystrom, plus the information she got out of Randolph before he relocated to Portland, has given her a rough idea on her Berserker strength. Though not with any idea on how to control it. "Yeah?" She flexes her hand that doesn't have any broken fingers and Mike nods when she looks at him. "Watch this." Just a little warning not to try anything stupid involving her Soulmate ever again.

Bobbi braces herself and puts all of her strength into punching the tackle dummy. The machine is on sliders to make it move easier on the ground for Mike's training, and it only makes her look more impressive. She might have been able to move it a few inches if it weren't for the sliders, but with them, her hit sends the machine fifty feet across the field before it stops.

The cadets running drills had stopped and stared, Mike was staring, Mike's trainer was staring, Coulson was staring. "Think about that before you think about Skye again."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Duly noted." Coulson nods as well.

It's a pity the strength would eventually wear off…

* * *

 

Bobbi had shot Mike in the head, FitzSimmons made the weapon that she used, he'd thrown May into a brick wall, and had kidnapped Skye; and Skye was still more receptive to Mike than she was to Bobbi. It was like Skye had moved on from being blatantly angry and was instead just ignoring her very existence.

Bobbi spent the entire flight to Ohio in the gym.

She could hear Mike, he wasn't exactly sneaky or quiet, and she didn't stop punching until he spoke. "Do you not want me here, Agent Morse?"

"Don't care either way." Bobbi shrugged, at best he was a distraction, at worst a liability to the team, but right now it wasn't much of a team anyway.

"Really?" Mike raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "'Cause the muscle at the Academy, and this right here," the punching bag she'd been attacking and the one she'd already destroyed. "-that says different."

Bobbi snorted to herself, what, three months at the Academy and he thinks he's a behavioural analyst? "Trust me; it's got nothing to do with you." Sure she was pissed he'd kidnapped Skye, and put the whole team, his own son, and hundreds of other people's lives in danger. But, she was always pissed these days, so that was nothing new.

"I asked Skye what was up." Mike mentioned, Bobbi's fists clenched, her jaw jaw clenched, her heart clenched. Anything that could clench was clenched. "You know, because you mentioned her, thought there might've been something going on, she looked like she wanted to cry or kill someone at the same time." The growl that escaped Bobbi's throat was nothing short of feral at the thought that he'd made her nearly cry.

"Hey, Mike." Bobbi took a step closer to the man, he was taller than her, but only by a few inches. "I don't have a problem with you, but you make her cry and I will. Got it?"

"Got it." Mike mock saluted, and Bobbi turned back to the punching bag.

Punching inanimate objects isn't nearly as therapeutic as punching people, but right now her punches could kill people, and as angry as she is, she doesn't want anyone dead.

Bobbi had upset Skye, Bobbi had made her nearly cry, Bobbi had made her angry, Bobbi had opened lifelong emotional scars in her. Bobbi had bared her Soul to the one person who was supposed to be there for her, and she'd had it thrown back at her with denials and anger because evolution or the Universe, or God, or whatever other dirty there was had given her a Soulmate who had no Mark in return.

The punching bag flew off its hook and smacked against the opposite wall, but Bobbi was already half out the gym and too angry to care.

Skye was in the lab, talking with Fitz, Simmons, and Mike. "Write it down." Bobbi's voice was unnecessarily loud and forceful.

"Excu-" Skye turned an angry glare on her, and the rest of the room was notably silent.

"The first words you said to me; 'hey, what up'. Write them down." A note pad and pen were shoved at the hacker. "Now."

If possible, Skye's eyes darkened even further. "You really are an asshole." Skye tried to walk away, but Bobbi's arm stopped her.

"Write. It. Down."

Silence.

Bobbi glared at Skye. Skye glared at Bobbi. Fitz, Simmons, and Mike watched in silence.

"Fine." The pen was snatched from the blondes hand. Three quick words scrawled on the paper and then shoved back at her, but Bobbi wasn't finished.

"Landing in ten." May's voice came through the loudspeaker before Bobbi could continue.

Okay, maybe she was finished for now.

* * *

 

It was a trick, a con, a double Agent the whole time. And Bobbi had been too caught up in her own shit to actually do her job. Bobbi feels sick to her stomach, but Coulson was taken because all she cared about was her own anger and Skye's rejection, Mike was killed because of it, Ace Peterson was orphaned. If she'd actually been doing her job she might have seen that Mike was playing them and been able to stop him before they got to the bridge. It was her job, she actually was a behavioural analyst, and she didn't do it properly.

"One week." Maria sounded resigned. "First it was the staff, then the ghost, now you actually lost Coulson?" Bobbi didn't correct her that it wasn't actually a ghost. "When we get Coulson back, and mark my word, he will be back on this plane within twenty-four hours or else, all of you are going on vacation for week so I can have one week without this shit." Hill rubbed her temples before addressing the room at large. "How is it that out of every base and every team and every Agent of this Global Security Agency, this is the team that causes me the most stress?" Bobbi glanced at May who was glaring straight ahead, then FitzSimmons who were huddled together, over to Skye who looked lost and broken. "Hand will be bringing a team on board to head the search. First person to break her orders gets fired." And Hill was pissed enough that Bobbi believed it.

Tori was a great friend, but she was a nightmare to work with.

"And if a single hair on Coulson's receding hairline is even bent wrong, all of you can say goodbye to your jobs. Got it?"

"Yes, Ma'am." The mumbles echoed all through the room.

Hill turned on her heel, heading for the door, a pause before she reached it. "And for the love of Thor, make sure that Peterson kid is actually safe before something like this happens again." Ace was still on the Bus, clearly Centipede had found where they'd relocated his Aunts family, and it led to Coulson being taken and Mike running into an explosion. They'd have to do better next time.

Not even 10 minutes after Hill left, the authoritative clicking of boots on the cargo ramp sounded again. Victoria Hand had arrived. "Alright, Agents, I want a complete briefing in five minutes, and in the air in ten." The order left no room for negotiation or rebuttals as the team started to scatter. "Freeze!" Bobbi froze, FitzSimmons froze, both looking frightened at being reprimanded again, Skye froze, May silently turned and raised an eyebrow at Hand. "I said Agents." Skye. Bobbi's stomach lurched. Tori didn't like hackers, consultants, or seemingly Skye herself. Hill had said to keep Skye close though, and surely Tori wouldn't go against that. Right? "Last I checked, the Rising Tide was an enemy organisation of Shield, and its members are certainty not Agents."

Skye was still frozen to the spot, Fitz and Simmons shared a worried look. "Skye is here under Coulson's authority." Bobbi spoke slowly, her heart racing. Tori wouldn't take Skye away from her, right? The mere thought made Bobbi want to punch and rage.

"And Coulson isn't here, is he, Agent Morse?" Hand smirked, a snap of her fingers brought one of her flanking Agents forward.

"She's a part of this team." Bobbi was sure punching her friend/superior was wrong, but the urge felt overwhelming. The urge to fight, to let the anger take over, to actually hurt someone for all the rage she had pent up inside.

Hand stood straighter, hands on her hips, a challenge in her eye. "Not my team." Bobbi took a step forward, fists clenched at her sides, a hand on her arm stopped her, May.

"Morse. Don't." The words were hissed, a warning.

That was fine for May to say, it wasn't her Soulmate that Tori was trying to kick off the plane. And May might have been trying to ration with her before she did something stupid that got her kicked off the Bus too, but Bobbi was backed by uncontrollable Berserker darkness that didn't listen to ration or reason. "If you want any personal effects, I suggest getting them now, because you're down to nine minutes." It was addressed to Skye, Tori gave more whispered orders to the Agent with the box that she'd summoned before, before calling for her team to start setting up.

Bobbi tried to head for Hand again, but May was still stopping her, and Bobbi was getting very pissed at May always stopping her. "The kid is my responsibility now, I'll talk to Hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Lupa78 for the French translations :D
> 
> You can not be here! How did you get here , Miss? -> Vous ne pouvez pas être ici! Comment avez vous fait pour rentrer, Mademoiselle?   
> \- Agent Morse, with Shield -> Agent Morse, avec le Shield  
> \- Shield? -> Shield?  
> \- Why is Shield here? Everything is fine? Are there more of Those -> Pourquoi le Shield est-il ici? Est-ce que tout va bien? Y-a-t-il plus de ceux là?   
> \- I'm going to need an access to the upper floor. -> Je vais avoir besoin accès à l'étage supérieur  
> \- Of course. Of course. -> Bien entendu. Bien entendu.  
> \- Anything to help Shield. -> N'importe quoi pour aider le Shield  
> Oublier que je suis ici - Forget that I'm here  
> \- May I take your drink? -> Puis-je prendre votre verre?   
> Oui. S'il vous plaît. - Yes. Please.  
> \- Bring another when you return. -> Rapportez en un autre lorsque que vous reviendrez   
> \- It will be worth your time . -> Vous ne perdrez pas votre temps (we don't use this expression but the opposite we say 'you won't waste your time')  
> Qui es-tu? - Who are you?  
> \- You are one of them. One of -> Vous êtes l'une d'entre eux. L'une des  
> \- I'm one of the good guys . -> Je fais partie des gentils   
> \- Because good guys break in and steal . -> Parce que les gentils entrent par effraction et volent  
> \- But they sell alien technology to the highest bidder ? -> Mais ils vendent de la technologie alien au plus offrant ?   
> \- Because it is would have happened . I am the good side. Believe me -> Parce que c'est ce qui se serait passé. Je suis du bon côté. Croyez-moi.  
> \- If you want it , just go -> Si vous le voulez, allez-y  
> Je ne pas besoin de vos explications. - I do not need your explanations.  
> \- Okay then -> Ok alors  
> Adieu - Goodbye  
> \- Close the door , I do not want strangers here . -> Fermez la porte, je ne veux pas d'étrangers ici.


End file.
